The Cabinet is meeting today at 5 in the evening and is likely to approve railway's policy of first and last mile connectivity projects, which includes port connectivity projects also.
The railway expects to attract investments from the stakeholders in rail infrastructure.
According to a senior railway official, "With the stakeholders investing in the infrastructure, we will work on a model to generate healthy returns for the private parties."
The railway ministry has already identified more than two dozen projects for providing first and last mile connectivity to coal, power and steel plants. These also include port connectivity projects.
The railways is already facing crunch of the physical infrastructure.
It has around 64,000 km of the network. According to rough estimates, railways has around 40-45 per cent of the rail able traffic (traffic beyond 250-300 km).
It is losing traffic to road because of poor first and last mile connectivity.