The union government has identified 15 railway routes across the country to be privatized. Private operators will allowed in these 15 routes.
The government has identified ten long and five short-distance routes. The long-distance routes are–Mumbai-Kolkata, Mumbai-Chennai, Mumbai-Guwahati, New Delhi-Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram-Guwahati, New Delhi-Kolkata, New Delhi-Bengaluru, New Delhi-Chennai, Chennai-Kolkata, and Chennai-Jodhpur. The five non-metro and short distance routes include–Lucknow-Gorakhpur, Kota-Jaipur, Chandigarh-Lucknow, Nagpur-Pune, and Visakhapatnam-Tirupati.
The Railway ministry will float the Request for Qualification (RFQ), bidding process to invite private players in the next 15 days. The qualified bidders or the private players will be shortlisted for the next bidding stage after the RFQ process.
The private players will only be allowed to run the trains and provide facilities like onboard entertainment, linen, catering etc., while the infrastructure like tracks, locks, signalling and others will still be controlled by Indian Railways.
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