Corporate to operate Kalka and Shimla, Siliguri and Darjeeling and other hill routes soon
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If all goes well, you may soon be boarding an ultra luxury toy train from Narrow and metre-gauge tracks linking the colonial era hill stations are set to be the first of the 108,000-kilometer rail network to be run privately, a senior railway official told ET.
Presently the railways run trains in
"We keep getting queries from private players who want to run their own operations. We want to be completely out of operations from these standalone corridors and branch lines and would only assist private players in running operations," a senior railway official told the ET.
"All these railways are on the international tourism map and Darjeeling Himalayan railways is a Unesco world heritage site. There's a huge opportunity for private sector, and for railways also it will be profitable."
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Winning bidders will be offered long-term concession agreements, making the leases more viable. The ministry has worked on both upfront-payment and revenue sharing models for leasing standalone passenger corridors and branch lines.
The private players would have options of flexibility to maintain and own stations on these proposed private lines. They would also be allowed to decide their own fare rates.
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