Team News Riveting
Indian Railways had extended the September 8 deadline for opening the ‘Request For Qualification’ invited for the operation of private trains.
The step was taken after many firms willing to run passenger services have sought more time to study minute details of the bidding documents before entering the race.
Heavyweight corporate players have shown keen interest in the Rs 30,000-crore project that has created a buzz in the market.
After the success of first pre-bid meeting held on July 21, the Indian Railways conducted the pre-application meeting for running private trains in 12 clusters across the Indian Railways network. In all, 109 routes have been identified.
The process started on 1 July and the due date for opening of RFQ was 8 September 2020.
“We have extended the date for opening of RFQ for a month. Now it will open on 8 October. We hope that all firms interested in the bidding would have enough time to do the needful,” said a senior Railway Ministry official aware of the development.
The Railways has planned two clusters each in Delhi and Mumbai, and one cluster each in Secunderabad, Chennai, Howrah, Jaipur, Prayagraj, Chandigarh, Bengaluru and Patna. The private train project will be launched in phases starting in the financial year 2023-24 financial year. By 2027, Railways plan to enhance it to 151 routes.
According to the Ministry’s projections, the transporter will select the companies that will run the private trains by April 2021; the first 12 are expected to start plying by 2023-24, followed by 45 more in 2024-25, the next 50 in 2025-26 and the last 44 by 2026-27.
