Rlys told to take private route on freight corridor

Private players will help complete speedily the Rs 27,000-cr corridor, say Finance ministry, Plan Panel.

Speedy completion was the peg used by the finance ministry and the Planning Commission to sell the public private partnership (PPP) route to the railways for constructing the Rs 27,000-crore dedicated freight corridor.

At an hour-long meeting at the Rail Bhavan, attended by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, it was decided that the railways would take a fresh look at how the ministry could fund the freight corridor.

The railways was asked to prepare another report which would be discussed in a couple of days.

Sources said the finance ministry and Planning Commission argued that PPPs would help complete the dedicated freight corridor in a much lesser time than the now projected five years to sell their idea to the railways.

"We discussed how the freight corridor can be constructed within a much shorter time-frame," was all that the railway minister told the media after the meeting. The minister also categorically stated that he was dead against privatisation of the railways and that the ministry was in a position to fund the project themselves.

Under a PPP structure, the track-laying and other infrastructure works might be tendered out on BOT basis similar to the way highway projects are tendered out by the NHAI.

Ever since the project was conceived, the railways has maintained that it wants to invest in its big-ticket project and be in a position of control whereas North Block and the Plan panel are of the view that it should not use its own money and instead allow more private participation in the project.

Earlier, the railways had suggested that PSU user industries such as Sail and Coal India could also fund the project.

However, the idea was shot down by the finance ministry, stating that the industries did not have the money to invest.