BHEL, L&T, Welspun, IRCTC among 15 firms in fray for running private trains

Rail ministry had invited RFQ for private operation of passenger trains over 12 clusters consisting of 140 Origin-Destination pair of routes with launch of 151 modern trains

At least 15 private companies have participated in the bidding process for operating passenger trains in 12 clusters.

The companies include BHEL, L&T Infrastructure Development Projects, Arvind Aviation, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarrriles, S.A, Cube Highways and Infrastructure, Gateway Rail freight, GMR Highways, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, IRB Infrastructure Developers, Malempati Power, Megha  Engineering and Infrastructures, PNC Infratech, RK Associates and Hoteliers, Sainath sales and Services and Welspun Enterprises.

Indian Railways on Wednesday opened the applications submitted by various entities in response to the request for quotation for public-private partnerships in the Passenger Train Operations Project. The ministry of railways has received 120 applications from 15 firms for the 12 clusters, a government statement said. 

 

The ministry had invited Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for private participation in running passenger train services over 12 clusters, comprising 140 Origin-Destination pair of routes with the launch of 151 modern, high-quality  trains. This is the first major initiative to attract private investment in this space. The project is expected to entail private investments of about Rs 30,000 crore.

The private entities would be selected through a transparent two-stage competitive bidding process comprising of Request for Qualification (RFQ) and Request for Proposal (RFP). The RFQ for 12 clusters were published on July 1.  

MoR will expeditiously complete the evaluation of Applications and RFP documents will be made available to the qualified applicants by November  2020. MoR has targeted to award all the Clusters by February, 2021.