Royal Orient set to be privatised

State government to hand over maintenance of luxury train to private parties

Having failed in its attempts to re-start the Royal Orient Train for the last two years, the Gujarat government has decided to hand over the maintenance and other services related to the luxury train to private parties.

In fact, privatisation of the Royal Orient Train is high on the government's priority list. The luxury train project tops last week's list of projects marked for privatisation. In the document for investment opportunities for the 'Vibrant Gujarat, Global Investors Summit - 2005', the 'Reintroduction of Royal Orient Train with an estimated investment of Rs 14 crore' figures prominently.

"We are open for privatisation of the Royal Orient. The document only states the estimated project cost, which may be negotiated with the interested private parties," Anil Patel, minister of state for tourism, said today.

The government had failed to run the train during Vibrant Gujarat - Global Investors Summit 2003 in September 2003 due to poor occupancy levels.

It had also failed to kick-start the service during the 'Vibrant Gujarat : Navratri 2004' which was touted as a tourist attraction. The government has also failed to run the train this season "" the train used to normally run in the October to April months.

"Royal Orient, which has been off the rails for the past two years, is not expected to become operational soon due to delays by the railways in converting metre gauge tracks in the Saurashtra region to broad gauge. The government had proposed to run the train during the 'Vibrant Gujarat Navratri 2004' but failed due to non availability of the broad gauge tracks. Moreover, the train was not fully ready for service," said a senior official of the tourism department. The new train is not ready yet and is being manufactured at a unit near Chennai.

Sources in the railways refute this charge. "The broad gauge conversion work is complete in almost all of Saurashtra. The line between Veraval and Somnath was recently inaugurated," said a railway official.

With the new gauge conversion, the Royal Orient is expected to run on a new route, which is not yet finalised.

The Royal Orient Train is a joint venture between the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat (28 per cent stake) and Indian Railways (72 per cent holding).

The train, previously known as Palace on Wheels, was run by the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC) in association with Indian Railways between Delhi and various parts of Rajasthan.

Due to the conversion of the metre gauge rail tracks into broad gauge in Rajasthan, the train was handed over to TCGL in 1995, which successfully ran the train and achieved break even in the fourth year of its operation.