PPP model welcome but not a compulsion for Railways: Lalu

New Delhi, Feb 5 (UNI) Asserting that 'Public Private Partnership model is neither a fashion nor a compulsion for Indian Railways', Railway Minister Lalu Prasad today said private players would be welcome only in the non-core activities, which offered enormous potential for accelerating momentum to its incredible turnaround story.

Addressing a two-day international conference on 'Meeting India's Infrastructure Needs with Public Private Partnerships', attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram and top brass of the World Bank, Mr Prasad sent out a strong message that he was not opposed to the participation of private players in the Railways' developmental saga, but it had to be on ''our conditions and in the interest of the common man''.

Unfolding his plans under the PPP model, he 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 the 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.

He said losses in parcel, catering and booking operations, which had been running into thousands of crores of rupees, had been brought down by half by leasing these services.

''We want to forge a partnership in which both the Railways and private investors have a win-win situation and both consumers and the economy are provided tremendous benefits,'' he added.

Besides Mr Chidambaram, the meeting is being attended by, among others, Finance Secretary Ashok Kumar Jha, World Bank Regional Deputy Director Patrick Rousseau, Executive Director Dhanendra Kumar and Vice-President (South Asia) Praful C Patel, Larsen and Toubro CMD A M Naik and top officials from the Planning Commission and the civil aviation, power and port sectors.

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