If you have to go from Delhi to Patna or Kolkata in the coming days, then you will have many options for travelling by train. You will be able to undertake a super luxury train journey, average journey, and no-frill journey. This will be possible through the train privatisation scheme of the Ministry of Railways. Currently, the Railways has called for RFQ to privatize more than 300 trains across the country, in which not only indigenous but also foreign companies are interested.
According to the plan of the country's government think tank, NITI Aayog, in July this year, you would have got the option of many private trains. But the plan did not work properly on what happened to the lockdown in the country due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus. In January itself, the Railways had requested Qualification or RFQ from indigenous and foreign companies to run 150 private trains. For this, a pre-bid meeting was already held by the Railway Board. But as the case progressed further, the infection of Coronavirus also came to India from abroad and there was lockdown for many months across the country.
Railway has again issued RFQ for running 151 private trains on 109 rail routes of the country. In this, the whole country is divided into 12 clusters and 10 to 15 vehicles are proposed to be run in each cluster.
All Indian and foreign companies will get a chance to run private trains in the Indian Railways network. Therefore, it is believed that the best trains or rolling stock in developed countries of the world will also be brought to India. Meaning that Indian travelers will also get the opportunity to travel on state-of-the-art trains running in Spain or other countries.
Railway officials say that at this time, except for Rajdhani, Shatabdi and some more premium trains, most trains are late. But private trains will run on time, so they will take less time to travel because their rolling stock will be state-of-the-art.
The railway, which has invited proposals from private companies to run private trains, has been given a license for 35 years. Railway officials say that once a box is made, it is 30-35 years old. So they will get the opportunity to use the entire rolling stock as a whole life cycle.
The routes selected by NITI Aayog for private companies include Bhagalpur to Delhi, Barauni to Delhi, Chapra to Delhi, Patna to Delhi, Katihar to Delhi, Varanasi to Delhi, Gorakhpur to Delhi, Kolkata to Delhi, Mumbai to Delhi. , very busy routes like Chennai to Delhi etc.
Before the lockdown, there was a pre-bid meeting of private companies to run private trains in the Ministry of Railways. It also included representatives of the Spanish company Talgo. Apart from them, representatives of companies like Medha, Bharat Forge, BEML, IRCTC, RK Associates, GATX, Essel Group, Adani Port and SEZ were also included in Indian companies.