Railways to offer 74 pc stake in dedicated freight corridors

The Railways of India will offer private players up to 74 per cent stake in various joint ventures related to the building of the dedicated rail freight corridors.

It is holding talks with companies like Bombardier, Alstom, Siemens, Reliance, Mitsui and Mitsubishi for joint bidding of the projects, it is learnt.

According to Exim News Service, the Railways will soon invite bids for entering into joint ventures with private companies to build locomotives, signalling systems and coaches.

It hopes to attract Rs 40,000 crore investment through public-private partnership (PPP) mode by 2011-12.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has reportedly submitted its report to the Railways on the draft qualification criteria, request for proposal, bidding and selection processes.

According to official estimates, the Railways needs to spend Rs 80,000 crore on rolling stock by 2011-12 and 50 per cent of this amount is expected from the private sector.

The dedicated Rail Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd would function through an earnings apportionment mechanism.

The Delhi-Mumbai stretch of the corridor will be on diesel traction, while the Delhi-Howrah stretch may be on electric traction. The corridor will have a 30-tonne axle load eventually.

The locomotive plant will come up at Chhapra in Bihar and a coach factory at Rae Bareilly, a senior Rail Bhawan official said.

The locomotives would be equipped with modern technology capable of hauling longer and heavier trains. The new coach factory would also provide high capacity coaches.

Source:Transportweekly