Telangana, railways sign MOU

Telangana on Thursday signed an MoU with the Indian Railways for development of railway infrastructure in the state in joint venture.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by railways' executive director, works, Ved Prakash, and Telangana's Roads and Buildings Secretary Sunil Sharma.

This is latest in the series of MoUs the ministry of railways is signing with states to form joint venture companies to execute railway projects.

As per the MoU, the state government will bear 51 percent cost of the projects while railways will contribute 49 percent. According to a statement from the chief minister's office, the agreement will expedite the railway projects in the state.

Railways have already signed MoUs for joint ventures with 17 states.

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu had last year announced setting up of joint ventures with states for focused project development, resource mobilisation, land acquisition, project implementation and monitoring of critical rail projects.

The joint venture companies, to be fully-owned by the government, will primarily identify projects and possible financing avenues in addition to the central and the state governments.

After finances for a project are tied up, project-specific special purpose vehicles shall be formed. These SPVs can have other stake holders from industries, central and state public sector undertakings but the JV companies shall be mandatory stake holders with minimum 26 percent shares in them.

The ministry will sign a concession agreement of 30 years with the project SPV for safe and sound operation, revenue sharing and providing technical and marketing logistics to the SPV.