Indian Railways can help achieve 9% growth

Indian Railways can help achieve 9% growth
The Indian Railways has a pivotal role to help India register an economic growth rate of over 9 per cent, Union Railways Minister, Pawan Kumar Bansal said while inaugurating an international conference titled ‘Rail@2020: Public-Private Partnership’, organised by ASSOCHAM).
“We must think out of the box to achieve the ambitious 9 per cent growth target and Indian Railways can play a very important role in this behalf by contributing about 2 per cent points of country’s economic growth,” said Mr Bansal. The minister said that we need dedicated-freight corridors to achieve this and for this, the government has planned two primary corridors — eastern and western corridor — one from Ludhiana to Kolkata and the other from Delhi to Mumbai. “When these corridors will become operational, the goods trains can move without any interruption whatsoever,” added Mr Bansal. “There is a scope for the private sector to infuse about Rs. 1-lakh crore during next 5 years to improve the rail network across India and for this we have different projects and about 105 models including the first-mile and last-mile connectivity,” said the minister while releasing an ASSOCHAM-Yes Bank study titled ‘Re-imagining Railways’. “The private sector can also contribute in making engines, running high-speed trains, and dedicated freight corridor and for which there will be different railway lines for transportation,” said Mr Bansal. “Containerisation is another sector which needs to be taken forward with private sector participation as it can help revolutionise transportation in India.” Talking about the private sector participation, Mr Bansal said, “Core functions would remain with railways and we are just inviting private sector to expand rail network and going by the size of India there is tremendous scope for expansion.” “We are working on a PPP model to connect main railway lines with ports, mines and clusters of industries and the PPP can prove to be most attractive and fruitful in railways than in any other sector,” said the minister. “We are also working out on increasing the capacity of passenger trains on a PPP basis as this growth model can result in a win-win situation for industry, government and the public at large.”

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