Railway Minister Piyush Goyal Friday asserted that the national transporter has no plans to sell government assets and people will not lose jobs due to corporatisation, allaying fears among its production unit workers that the factories will be given to private parties.
The minister rather showed confidence in the railways manufacturing units, which have produced state-of-the-art coaches like in Train 18 and are in the process of making Train 20, by indicating that the railways will invest in creating metro coaches and stock.
"We are not selling off government assets. Everybody's jobs will be protected. Like we have IRCON, RITES - they are all corporatised government companies," he told PTI in an interview amidst disquiet in its production units about the railways proposal to hive them off as one corporate entity.
In fact, the allocation for rolling stock has increased from Rs 3,724.93 crore in 2018-2019 to Rs 6,114.82 crore in 2019-2020. It was announced in the interim budget prepared by Goyal in February this year. Goyal held the finance portfolio at that time.
This will include investment for state-of-the-art coaches, train sets and even metro coaches.
"Our role will be more in creating metro coaches and metro stock," Goyal told PTI.
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As of now, only the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai produces such coaches for the Kolkata Metro.
The term 'rolling stock' in rail transport refers to any vehicle that moves on tracks. It includes coaches, wagons and train sets.
Railways has got a budgetary allocation of Rs 65,837 crore and the highest ever outlay for capital expenditure amounting to Rs 1.60 lakh crore in the Union Budget