Freight corridors to spur private investment opportunities: Railway Board

Mindboggling business opportunities would be unbound in the near future in the Indian Railways, particularly in the field of public-private partnerships (PPP), said Subodh Jain, Member, Engineering, Railway Board, at the 10th edition of the International Rail Conference, organized by the CII here on Thursday.

Speaking at the session on rail infrastructure and transportation, Jain said that policy initiatives for the modernization and technology up gradation of the railways were in place.

However, the huge resource crunch for implementing projects required the participation of the private sector, both from India and abroad, he said.

Describing the steps taken by the Railways to encourage private engagement, he pointed out that changes in the procurement policy now enabled private parties to sell their products directly to the service providers.

Conceding that the PPP model is a difficult and complex system as far as track construction is concerned, Jain said the responsibility of land acquisition and obtaining environmental clearances would be borne by the Railways to hedge the risk in implementing the projects.

Once such formalities were completed, the private sector would be assigned the project responsibilities, he said.

Jain observed that the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) would not only make the functioning of the Indian Railways more focused and user-friendly, but also upgrade the system as one of the best run railway networks in the world.

Rajeev Jyoti, CEO (Railway Business) Larsen and Toubro, listed station de-congestion, steps for increasing the revenues, creating more freight corridors etc. as critical to enhance the performance of the Indian Railways. He also described the capabilities of LandT to participate in railway modernization works.

R K Gupta, Managing Director, Dedicated Fright Corridor( DFC) highlighted the business opportunities in the implementation of the DFC.

With the completion of the North-East and the Delhi-Mumbai corridors, the traffic movement would be smooth, and would bring about substantial business opportunities in the field of automation, signaling, traffic planning, technology for enhancing efficiency, station renovation and maintenance, he said.

Gupta further said that the World Bank has funded the Delhi Mumbai Corridor to the extent of USD 2.5 billion, while JETRO, the Japanese organization, is the funding agency for the North-East corridor.

As much as 91 per cent of the land acquisition of the Delhi-Mumbai Corridor has been completed, and the agency has got the required environmental clearances. He invited foreign investment in the earmarked sectors, particularly in the industrial hubs coming up along both corridors.