COMING, PRIVATISATION OF RAILWAY PASSENGER SEGMENT
Dated 30 th October 2013
The Railways on Tuesday set the ball rolling for privatising
its passenger segment on its existing infrastructure with the launch of
theHigh Speed Rail Corporation (HSRC).
Railway Minister
Mallikarjun Kharge launched the HSRC as a fully-owned subsidiary of Rail
Vikas Nigam Limited, which his predecessor Nitish Kumar had set up with
the objective of raising extra budgetary resources — from the market
and private investors.Mr. Kharge, however, issued a word of caution
against adopting new technology.
NO TECHNOLOGY FOR
GRATIS
“You should not buy
horses merely because horse shoes are freely available,” was Mr. Kharge’s
caution. He stressed how technology could be made available for even free.
“At times they tell us how cheap it is. The question is whether it suits us or
not, not whether it is cheap or free.” He launched the corporation at an
“International Conference on HighSpeed Rail Travel — Low Cost Solutions.”
Mr. Kharge, however,
underlined the need for high speed rail while focusing on providing a mass
mode of safe, reliable and affordable transport. Railway Board Chairman
Arunendra Kumar said the Corporation, as the implementing agency, would
contribute in the joint venture to be formed under the Public Private
Partnership mode. The other stakeholders could be the State governments
and private investors, explained corporation chairman Satish Agnihotri.
SEVEN ROUTES
The Railways have
identified seven routes — all commercially viable — on which the mini high
speed trains with a speed of 160 km per hour to 200km per hour would be
operated under the PPP mode. Officials maintained a stoic silence when asked if
the railways were giving away the most viable routes to the private
sector.Some of the routes identified are Ahmedabad-Mumbai, Amritsar-Ludhiana-Chandigarh-Delhi,
Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna, Chennai-Thiruvananthapuram and Bangalore-Chennai.
The first project to be implemented under the scheme will be the
Mumbai-Ahmedabad route.
