Indian Railways’ Biggest Privatisation Push: 150 Private Trains Across 100 Routes (Here Are The Routes)

In one of the biggest ever privatization push by Indian Railways, it has been decided that 150 private trains will now run across 100 crucial routes, connecting the metropolitical cities.

Which are these routes, where private trains will run?

Keep reading to find out more..

A New Milestone For Indian Railways: 150 Private Trains

After the successful launch of Tejas Express, which has been hailed as the first private train from Indian Railways, Govt. has now approved 150 more private trains, across 100 routes.

This has been described as a new milestone by Railways officials.

Railway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav said, “PPPAC has already cleared the Railways’ proposal of inviting bids from private players to run 150 trains. The bids will be invited soon, maybe in 10-15 days. It will be a milestone for Indian Railways,” 

This proposal of mega-privatization of rail routes has been approved by Finance Ministry’s Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC), which observed the success of Tejas Express, India’s 1st private train which runs between New Delhi and Lucknow.

2nd Tejas Express, between Ahmedabad and Mumbai has also been approved, and will run from January ends.

Which Routes Will Be Privatised?

In the new push for privatization, 100 rail routes have been earmarked, which are very crucial, and connects almost all the major Indian cities which are metropolitans.

These are the routes which will now have private trains running:

Mumbai-Kolkata, Mumbai-Chennai, Mumbai-Guwahati, New Delhi-Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram-Guwahati, New Delhi-Kolkata, New Delhi-Bengaluru, New Delhi-Chennai, Kolkata-Chennai, Chennai-Jodhpur,  Mumbai-Varanasi, Mumbai-Pune, Mumbai-Lucknow, Mumbai-Nagpur, Nagpur-Pune, Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam, Patna-Bengaluru, Pune-Patna, Chennai-Coimbatore, Chennai-Secunderabad, Surat-Varanasi and Bhubaneswar-Kolkata. 

Besides these, some important routes connecting non-metro cities such as Allahabad, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Katra, Gorakhpur, Chhapra and Bhagalpur; Gorakhpur-Lucknow, Kota-Jaipur, Chandigarh-Lucknow, Visakhapatnam-Tirupati and Nagpur-Pune have also been approved.

Overall, there will be 35 routes connecting New Delhi which will be privatized, 26 routes with Mumbai, 12 with Kolkata, 11 with Chennai and 8 routes with Bengaluru.

Which Private Operators Will Be Chosen?

An open bidding will be done, for allocating these routes to private players, and these private trains will be allowed to run at a maximum speed of 160 kmph.

Brands like MakeMyTrip, SpiceJet, Indigo have already expressed interest in running private trains.