New Delhi: The Ministry of Railways may run a private train between Puri and Howrah along with 23 other routes across the country.
The railway board has called a meeting of all members September 27 to discuss issues related to private operation of passenger trains. The railway board has also proposed an indicative list of potential routes and has identified Howrah-Puri, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Mumbai-Pune, Howrah-Tata, Howrah-Patna, Delhi-Chandigarh/Amritsar and others as potential intercity routes for private train operation.
Similarly, Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Howrah, Secunderabad-Delhi, Delhi-Chennai, Howrah-Mumbai, among others for overnight and long distance services.
The railways has stated that the private operators will have the right to determine and collect fares in terms of a concession agreement being formulated for this purpose. It has also asked the zonal railways to identify potentially viable and operationally feasible routes for introduction of privately operated passenger trains.
It is to be mentioned here that as part of the 100-day action plan, the Ministry of Railways has proposed that private operation of passengers trains be introduced to provide world class services.
Under this plan, private operators would be identified through a bidding process. Private operators will induct modern passenger trains and operate them on paths allocated to them on payment of haulage charges.