Indian Railways is looking for a quantum jump in technology upgrades to infrastructure, especially in terms of rolling stock and maintenance, by inviting private parties to run modern train services in select routes in a few years’ time.
“Railway technology globally has undergone tremendous changes. Last time we had a major upgrade was 13 years ago, when we got the German-made LHB coaches, a model that was already seven years’ old. It means the technology is 20 years old now and there were no changes since then,” explained Chairman, Railway Board, Vinod Kumar Yadav.
“Through the Public, Private Participation (PPP), we are envisaging the latest technology coaches from the private partners for greater safety and passenger comfort. Modern coaches can be run for 40,000 km before going for ‘pit maintenance’ whereas our coaches need maintenance for every 4,000 km. You can imagine the efficiencies it will bring into the system with low maintenance and high capacity utilisation,” he pointed out, in an exclusive interaction.
Railways had turned to LHB coaches for safety and maintenance, discarding the earlier coaches made by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) because of high casualties during accidents. The ongoing successful PPP project with Alstom has already ensured that the most modern locomotives are now available for the Indian Railways and the first one has already started running for the last six months, said Mr. Yadav.
The Chairman was at pains to insist that because of limited resources, Indian Railways is looking for private investment to the tune of ₹30,000 crore, hence initiative to run 109 private trains including 10 from South Central Railway (SCR) should not be looked in isolation. It is not “privatisation” and “there is no question of throwing anyone out”.
In fact, there will be more employment opportunities as the entire operations from running the trains, guards, signalling and safety certification will be done by the railway personnel only. “We have made elaborate plans for infrastructure upgrade for the next five years to run these private trains in addition to the normal trains for those who can pay,” he affirmed.
With dedicated freight corridor between Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi Kolkata slated to become operational by Dec 2021-March 2022, it will certainly ease up capacity to run more passenger trains by April 2023-March 2024. “We have stopped new lines construction and put focus on doubling, tripling and quadrupling of existing high capacity 11,000 km by March 2021 and another 12,000 km in a couple of years so that by December 2023-2025, the capacity is doubled for freight and passenger operations,” said Mr. Yadav.
The Chairman said the overall network capacity will increase exponentially with higher speeds with dedicated freight corridor, multi-tracking and electrification. This will allow passenger trains to be run on demand in three-five years and also double the freight capacity.