Indian Railways has announced an indicative list of over 100 origin-destination pairs for the operation of passenger train services by the private entities, under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. Indian Railways has also launched draft Request for Qualification and draft Concession Agreement, for seeking comments from stakeholders.

The objectives of the privatization are to introduce modern technology rolling stock with reduced maintenance, reduction in transit time, provision of world-class amenities and to reduce the supply-demand deficit. The private partner will be responsible for designing, financing, procurement, operation and maintenance of the train services. The estimated cost for the project is INR 18000 million (US$ 239.81 million).

Indian Railways offers various kinds of train services to cater to the need of a diverse set of passengers. Trains like Gatimaan Express, Vande Bharat Express, etc. are provided with augmented facilities and are popular among the premium segment. Trains like Rajdhani Express, Duronto Express, Shatabdi Express, etc. offer fully reserved accommodation and facilitate the long-distance and inter-city passengers. Further, other Mail Express trains and Antyodaya trains are operated for the benefit of general passengers including those traveling on unreserved tickets. The fare of Sleeper and Second Class is highly subsidized and as a part of its Social Service Obligation, fare concessions are offered to various categories like Senior citizens, freedom fighters, Students, Divyangjans, etc. even in the reserved classes. Consequently, on average, Indian Railways recovers only 57% of the cost of travel. The scope and scale of trains operated over Indian Railways, which carries about 23 million passengers on a daily basis cannot currently be compared with the New Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express being operated by IRCTC, in which fare is generally higher as compared to similar services on Indian Railways and no concession is admissible. However, systemic improvements over Indian Railways is a continuous and ongoing process.

You can find the draft RFQ document here and presentation for procurement here.