India Railways Bids to Run Private Passenger Trains

[Pensyfan19]

This is the exact opposite of Great Britain, who nationalized all of their passenger services due to the virus.

https://www.railwaygazette.com/passenge ... 89.article

INDIA: Confirming its intention to work with private operators to address a shortfall in passenger capacity, the Indian Railway Board issued requests for qualification on July 1 for 35-year concessions to operate private trains on the national network from 2023.
IR currently operates around 13 500 passenger trains per day which carry around 23 million people. It estimates that the unmet demand could fill a further 7 000 trains per day, but capacity constraints mean that it has been losing market share to other modes, notably airlines. It is looking to find private partners to procure and operate additional trains between core city pairs, making use of capacity freed up by the opening of the dedicated freight corridors and other enhancement works.
The IR Board has long been looking at PPPs as a way of harnessing private investment to reduce its dependence on borrowing, but in the 2019-20 financial year PPPs only raised 18% of its Rs1·6tr of ‘extra-budgetary resources’ against a planned 33%. The railway has since unveiled a Rs50tr infrastructure investment programme for 2021-30
The Ministry of Railways issued a concept paper earlier this year seeking feedback on the private train proposals, but the bidding timescale has been set back by the coronavirus pandemic. According to IR Chairman V K Yadav, the bidding process is now expected to be finalised by April 2021, and ‘we are expecting that the private train operations will begin by April 2023’.

[Mollie]

This will be an interesting development - albeit some of the private Tejas Express trains now don't seem to add much value. I wonder if the Indian Railways needs multiple operators, or if that could create a complexity that isn't worth it...

[west point]

IMHO there are 2 factors that might make this work for a profit making company.
1. India has many routes that handle 20+ car trains. If a company can sell a 20 car train with probably 14 revenue cars that will help.
2. India has one of the highest number of workers per train in the operation department(s) of any RR including even the USA legacy RRs. For instance CPs have enough personnel to set up routes at last minute when a train rings the bell. India does not dely trains at CPs, meets, diversions , etc.

[David Benton]

This is the exact opposite of Great Britain, who nationalized all of their passenger services due to the virus.

The British govt has bailed the franchises out , but not renationalised. Some are arguing renationalisation would be cheaper.

India will always be a bureaucratic mess, requiring lots of extra employees , mostly paper pushers. I doubt there would be any less staff , it seems to be more a push for capital than efficiency.