Railways to re-evaluate tenders for Rs 30k crore private trains project

The railways are reevaluating the ongoing bidding process for the Rs 30,000 crore private passenger trains after it failed to receive any interest from private players for its tender floated last year for the operation of such trains in 12 clusters, senior officials confirmed.

New Delhi:After facing negligible participation from private companies in the bidding process, Railways is now re-evaluating Rs 30,000 crore tenders of private trains that were being floated last year regarding the operation of private trains in 12 clusters, a Railway official informed.

Out of these 12 clusters, which were put up for bidding, only three saw any bid at all. A fresh tender will be issued by the Railways after the evaluation process.

Railway Ministry had initiated the tender process in July 2020. For the Request for Qualification, a total number of 120 applications were received by Railways in the month of October 2020 from 15 companies for 12 clusters including Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited, IRB Infrastructure Developers Limited, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited, GMR Highways Limited, Welspun Enterprises Limited, Gateway Rail Freight Limited, L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited, and many others.

While only two companies, Megha Engineering and IRCTC, took part in the financing bidding. Due to this low participation, the Ministry has now decided to re-evaluate the tender as this project was expected to entail a private sector investment of nearly Rs 30,000 crore.

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The officials indicated that the absence of a regulator, payment of haulage charges in addition to sharing revenue, and curbs on route flexibility are among the likely reasons that kept bidders away from the railways' ambitious plans.

The Indian Railways in July last year planned to introduce private trains on its network in phases, with the first dozen due to start running in the 2023-24 financial year and all 151 by 2027. According to the Railway Ministry's projections, the transporter was supposed to select the companies that will run the private trains by April 2021; the first 12 were expected to start plying by 2023-24, followed by 45 more in FY 2024-25, the next 50 in FY 2025-26 and the last 44 by 2026-27.

Now, the sources said that the ministry has gone back to the drawing board to plan the modalities of the entire scheme from scratch.

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(Agency Inputs)