As many as 23 firms including Bombardier, Alstom, Siemens and GMR have shown interest in running private trains in the country and attended a pre-application meeting Wednesday as a first step, the Railways said.
Other companies that attended the meeting on running private trains in 12 clusters included BEML, IRCTC, BHEL, CAF, Medha Group, Sterlite, Bharat Forge, JKB infrastructure and Titagarh Wagons Limited, it said.
The Railways has invited 12 Request for Qualifications for private participation in operation of passenger trains over 109 origin-destination pair of routes through introduction of 151 modern trains (rakes).
These new trains will be in addition to the existing ones operated on the network.
This is the first initiative of private investment for running passenger trains on the Railways network. The project would entail a private sector investment of about ₹ 30,000 crore.
The private entities for undertaking the project will be selected through a two-stage competitive bidding process comprising Request for Qualification (RFQ) and Request for Proposal (RFP).
