Indian Railways, the world's fourth largest rail network, will require a massive Rs 5,60,396 crore for leap-frogging to the next generation which will see bullet trains and modern stations, Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi said on Thursday.
Replying to a debate on the Appropriation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, he said, "I require Rs 5,60,396 crore and I know where to get it from." The ambitious investment plans for the public transporter are more than five times its annual budget of close to Rs 1 lakh crore.
The Minister said he has appointed an expert committee under chairmanship of telecom and IT expert Sam Pitroda, which also has HDFC chief Deepak Parekh and former SBI chief M S Verma, to help Railways in raising these resources.
The Railways expects sizeable investment from the private sector in areas like building of world class stations on the lines Delhi Airport and modernisation of trains. The Railways propose to set up Rail Station Authority of India, like the Airport Authority. The proposed body would be entrusted with building only world class stations. The minister said a big investment of $1 trillion is envisaged to be spent on infrastructure, 50 per of which is going to come from the private sector. "I also hope to get a lot of money from the Planning Commission, he said, adding that Indian Railways need to go to the fourth generation for which resources will be raised through all out efforts. "I will go to the Prime Minister...For lack of resources we cannot let Railways lag behind," he said. Railways are already in touch with Japanese and French experts for introduction of bullet trains so that travel time between, say, Kolkata and Delhi can be cut to six hours. "A person working in Delhi can live in Chandigarh," he said.
Trivedi said the high-level safety review committee comprising nuclear scientist Dr Anil Kakodkar and space scientist Dr Kasturirangan among others, will submit its report within the next one month. "I will go deep into the report," he said underlining that the Railways have zero tolerance on passenger safety. Touching on the issue of its financial position, he said a concerted effort was being made to keep Railway's operating ratio between 90 and 94. The Railways operating ratio indicates the amount it spends on an earning of Rs 100 -- lower the ratio, better it is for the public transporter which runs more than 19,000 trains carrying 2.2 crore passengers a day. Trivedi was candid enough to admit that railway projects announced in the Budget as late as in 1975 have not been completed because "every railway minister is under pressure from MPs to make announcements". He said during the five and half months of his tenure in the office, he has received 3,406 requests from MPs, 202 of which are related to construction of new lines and 236 are for introduction of new passenger services. He said all such requests have been computerised so as to study them in details during the preparation of the Railway Budget.