Lalu invites pvt players in railways' development

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Wednesday said the railways would continue to liberalise their policies in the future for attracting private investment.

Railway Board Chairman JP Batra said the railways had on their plate as many as 250 projects that would require an investment of Rs 50,000 crore.

"Given the good performance last year, there is no dearth of funds, but to make the railways one of the top organisations in India, we need private investment. Public-private partnership is an ideal instrument for this," Prasad said.

Emphasising its commitment for attracting private investment, he said the organisation had taken several measures to upgrade and modernise infrastructure, which included allowing private participation in container services.

The railways achieved a record profit of Rs 13,000 crore in 2005-06, which was expected to rise further in the future.

Cabinet Secretary BK Chaturvedi said the targeted 10 per cent growth in gross domestic product was unsustainable without adequate private investment in infrastructure.

Ministers of State for Railways "" R Velu and Naranbhai Rathwa "" identified multi-modal logistic hubs, setting up of inland container depots, development of passenger hubs, remote area connectivity and the wagon investment scheme as some of the areas that needed public-private partnership.

The railways' Financial Commissioner R Sivadasan, however, pointed out various issues that needed to be addressed before private partnerships happened in a big way.

These included legal and contractual issues with private partners, legal framework for dispute resolution, credit-worthiness of the projects and the ideal debt-to-equity ratio that had to be followed.