Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) are in talks to partner up and run private trains through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that the two public sector undertakings (PSUs) are planning to form, sources told Business Standard.
IRCTC will put in bids for routes and the companies will run passenger trains on these routes through the SPV.
"BHEL will be putting in the money required for private rail service, while IRCTC is going to focus on operational requirements. IRCTC’s business model has not been capital expenditure-focussed. It has built only operational enhancements," an official told the publication.
Bids for a public-private partnership (PPPs) in passenger train operations were opened last month and according to a statement from the government, bids have come in for 29 pairs of trains with around 40 modern rakes, entailing an investment of around Rs 7,200 crore.
Several top companies including L&T, GMR and Welspun were in the race to participate in the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage to operate private passenger train services in November last year.
Out of 120 applications from 16 firms at the Request for Qualification (RFQ) stage, 102 applications were found eligible for the RFP stage, the Ministry of Railways said.
The Railways invited bids from private firms to operate passenger train services in over 12 clusters comprising more than 150 origin-destination pair of routes through the introduction of 151 modern Trains.