NEW DELHI: Railways are conservative in dealing with contract management with private players and need a liberal policy to attract significant private investment in rail sector, Railway Board Chairman A K Mittal today said.
He stressed that ease of doing business should be there to increase volumes.”Railways should address the concern of private players for attracting private investment. If there is a risk then the risk factor has to be addressed,” he said at a function here.
“We have to be fair in dealing with the contract management. Railways should not shy away from renegotiating in the interest of railways as well as investors,” he said, adding, “Ease of doing business should be there to increase volume of business.”
Voicing dissatisfaction over the pace of development of terminals, he said, “Whether it is a freight terminal or coach terminal we have done very little on improving terminals.”
Seeking more investment in terminals, Mittal said the number of private terminals is not sufficient. “There is a need for adequate investment in terminals. There are only 27 private terminals while approvals have been given for 47 more. We should have 400 private terminals by now.”
He said Railways focus is on steel, cement and automobile sectors and there should be improvement on loadings of these goods.
Noting the development in railways since Independence, he said, “We have increased freight rate on a regular basis but not passenger fares. That is why passenger fare is lowest and the freight rate is substantially on the higher side. Today, there is hardly any scope of increasing freight rate any further.”
On the contrary, Mittal said spending on the road sector is more than twice than on the rail sector. “As a result there is congestion on rail route because rail network has not expanded much.”(agencies)
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