Private participation in railways yields good results: Velu

Madurai, Nov 9 (UNI) The opening up of new areas for private participation has yielded encouraging results for the Railways and made it more vibrant, Minister of State for Railways R Velu said today.

After flagging off the Madurai-Tirupathi-Manmad weekly express train service here this evening, the Minister said Public-Private partnership, launched by the Railways, was bound to expand into new domains.

''Warehousing, track laying, container traffic, own your wagon scheme, budget hotels and cultivation of jatropha -- the raw material for bio-fue -- were the programmes taking firm roots,'' he added.

He said, the Railways was prepared to allow private participation in any viable business enterprise.

Container traffic had elicited good response from private parties all over the country while the west coast region of Gujarat had evinced great interest in track to track laying, he observed.

On the upgradation of 16 major railway stations to world class standards, he said details were to be worked out. The idea was to establish shopping malls to provide wide-range services to the travellers at the stations.

Regarding safety measures, the Minister said while laying new railway tracks underway passes would be provided to avert accidents at unmanned level crossings (UMLCs). There were over 18,000 unmanned level crossings in the country while the number of manned ones stood at 16,000.

Based on the criteria of visibility, altitude and vehicular traffic, only 900 of the UMLCs were qualified for being upgraded as MLCs, he added. In Tamil Nadu out of 1,100 UMLCs, only 16 were targeted to be upgraded, he added.

The Minister said the net profit of the Railways at the close of this financial year would be Rs 20,000 crore.

Citing an example, he said production capacity of the Perambur Integral Coach Factory had been increased from 1,000 to 1,500 coaches. In addition to the Kapurthala unit, a new one would be established at Amethi, he added.

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