Railways encourage private investments in building rail infrastructure. A new policy for building and strengthening rail connectivity and capacity augmentation has recently been announced. Some of the other areas where railways encourage private investments are development of Private Freight Terminals, Procurement and Leasing of Wagons, Operations of container trains, redevelopment of stations, Loco & Coach manufacturing units etc. Railways have implemented are in process of implementation seven projects thought Joint Venture routs and connectivity to Mundra Port has been commissioned through pure private funding.
Given the huge throw-forward of ongoing projects for which the present day coast stands at Rs. 1.47 lakh crore, State Governments (including state Government of Odisha) and other beneficiaries have been requested to come forward for a total 35 railway projects. In addition to higher resources mobilization through internal generation, increase in resources through extra-budgetary measures is being attempted for enhancing the pace of progress of all ongoing projects, including those in Odisha. Prioritization of projects has also been done to enable optimum utilization of limited resources and for facilitating smooth flow of funds to the projects targeted for completion. The precise time frame for completion of projects cannot be forecasted as the progress is dependent on availability of resources.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Kotla Jaya Surya Prakash Reddy in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.