Indian Railways plans to invite bids for passenger trains

National transporter Indian Railways is planning to invite bids for running trains with a capacity of over 150 passengers from private operators. An identification of approximately 100 destinations has been done by the railways where these trains will be run by the winning companies. It is expected that most of these destinations will be the same in the bids that were invited last year. The process had to be withdrawn in November due to the muted interest displayed by the private companies. Consultation with investors wanting to run passenger trains has begun by the railways. The bidding parameters will be adjusted on the basis of their feedback for attracting more bidders. Railways had opened a Rs 30,000 crore tender in July last year for running the private trains on 109 origin-destination pairs. The tender had been further divided into 12 clusters. Approximately 12 clusters received 120 applications from 15 different firms. Out of which the financial bids were received by three clusters from the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and Megha Engineering and Infrastructure (MEIL). GMR Highways, IRB Infrastructure and Developer, Cube Highways and Infrastructure III, and Welspun Enterprises are some of the firms that displayed interest initially. Image Source