Railways offers container business to private firms
05 Jan 2007
New Delhi: The railways have allowed private operators to run container trains, thus ending the monopoly of Concor. The move will increase government revenues by Rs2,000 crore annually. The model concession agreement for the same was signed between the railways and 14 private container train operators.
The
14 operators include Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Infrastructure
Engineering, Adani Logistics, Boxtrans Logistics Container
Rail Road Services, Gateway Distriparks, IL&FS and
Pipavav Rail Corporation (PRC).
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, agriculture products company Cargill and fertiliser major Kribhco are keen on the second round of bidding for private container rail operations, officials in the Rail Bhawan said.
The private operators will invest Rs400 crore for manufacturing 2,000 wagons for goods transportation.
The
companies would buy containers from manufacturers, build
inland container depots and find customers, while railways
would run the goods trains. The companies have already
paid Rs500 crore to Railways as licence fee. The deadline
for execution of the business is three years.