No reckless privatisation of Railways: Lalu

New Delhi, Feb 5 (UNI) Unmindful of the presence of a large foreign and domestic audience interested in building of India's infrastructure, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad today ruled out reckless privatisation of the railways, saying a cautious approach would be adopted in the implementation of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.

Asserting that the PPP model ''is neither a fashion nor a compulsion for Indian Railways'', Mr Prasad, however, said he was not opposed to this developmental model per se.

''We only want to maintain control over the railways' core activity, that is running of trains, while non-core activities like modernisation of stations, dedicated freight corridor and logistics parks, would be thrown open to the private sector,'' he said, addressing a two-day international conference on ''Meeting India's Infrastructure Needs with Public Private Partnerships''.

Mr Prasad said his ministry had formulated an ambitious plan for the modernisation and growth of Railways, entailing an expenditure of Rs 3,00,000 crore over a period of five years, 40 per cent of which was expected to come under the PPP model.

''We expect significant participation from the private sector in areas like operation of container trains, construction of Dedicated Freight Corridor, logistics parks and warehouses and modernisation of stations,'' he said.

The minister said another area for private participation was the railways' plan to open 'agricultural outlets', which would lead to creation of supply chain and infrastructure facilities for agricultural produce.

With regard to modernisation of stations, he said the railways planned facilities like fully airconditioned waiting rooms, rest rooms, shopping malls, multiplexes, food plazas and multi-level underground parking.

''We extend open invitation to private players for providing these facilities and the rules in this regard will be absolutely transparent,'' he said, adding that a PPP Cell had already been put in place in the Railway Board to chalk out a policy framework for the partnership model.

The conference is being attended, among others, by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi, Finance Secretary Ashok Kumar Jha, World Bank Regional Deputy Director Patrick Rousseau and and Vice-President (South Asia) Praful C Patel, Larsen and Toubro CMD A M Naik and top officials from the Planning Commission and civil aviation, power and port sectors.

Mr Prasad said the Railways had already started work on the ambitious Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) project linking Delhi and Mumbai and Ludhiana and Kolkata, at a cost of over Rs 30,000 crore.

''In the near future, we have plans to build corridors on the entire Golden Quadrilateral and its diagonals,'' he said, pointing out that Railways would be keen to encourage PPP in the multi-modal logistics.

However, important functions like control over operation of trains would be a prerogative of the Railways, the minister said.

In this connection, Mr Prasad pointed out that while private players had been allowed to run container trains, the Railways had maintained its control over track and operation.

MORE UNI