In a new bid to include private players in the railways’ business, the Indian Railways authorities are planning on auctioning railway stations to private firms after modernizing them. The news comes after Indian Railways recently announced to seek bids from private firms for running 151 private passenger trains across the nation.
The announcement was made by Minister of Indian Railways, Piyush Goyal, who was addressing a webinar. While talking about the responses of private firms for running passenger trains, the Union minister said that the bids were “all out and well responded”.
Further, while mentioning centres decision, to auction railway stations, he said “There are plans to modernize the railway stations. Then, those will be auctioned to private players at a later stage.”
Mentioning about the resumption of metro services in Kolkata and freight corridor project that got delayed due to COVID-19, he said,
“The entire quantum of land needed for the portion of the corridor in West Bengal is yet to be handed over by the state government to the special purpose vehicle for the project.”
“But, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is against the resumption of flight and suburban railway services in the state. If the metro starts functioning, things will go out of hand,” he added.