core sector communique

Railways hold Landmark Consultantation Workshop with trade and Industry on public private partnership (PPP) policy Initiatives

The workshop comes as a sequel to whom it may Concern: Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Historical Inititative of pre budget Interaction with Trade and Industry
  
In yet another landmark initiative undertaken by Ministry of Railways to attract private participation in various railway projects, an Interactive Workshop was held here today by the Railways with the representatives of Chambers of Commerce & Industry to obtain their feed back on a number of policy initiatives involving private participation which have recently been formulated. The formulation of the policies by Ministry of Railways comes up following the historical and unprecedented pre-budget interaction with trade and industry representatives held by Minister of Railways Mamata Banerjee on 6th Feb. this year. The historical February interaction saw Railway Minister and the entire Railway Board in a direct two-way dialogue with the captains of the trade and industry. Today’s workshop has been organized against the backdrop of Railway Minister’s ardent desire to involve all the stake-holders in an honest dialogue as an integral part of the formulation of major policy initiatives of Indian Railways.

In his address, Shri S.S.Khurana, Chairman, Railway Board recalled that the theme of the pre budget interaction of the Railway Minister was to underscore the fact that a range of exciting opportunities for public private partnership in the Railways exists and to tap these opportunities, focused attention was needed in two areas, namely structuring of projects and schemes to make them attractive and procedural simplification. Shri Khurana thanked the industry participants for their enthusiastic response and also highlighted the importance that the Ministry attaches to consultation process involving users and stake holders in formulating Private Participation initiatives so as to make them attractive and acceptable.

The workshop was attended by around 150 Industry delegates representing CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA), Fertilizers Association of India, Society of India Automobile Manufacturers, Association of Container Operators, Federation of Indian Mineral Industry and National Highway Builders Federation. The top echelons of the Ministry of Railways including the Chairman, the Members of Railway Board and Dr.Amit Mitra, Chairman, of the Expert Committee participated in the workshop and responded to the comments and suggestions of the participants.

Several policy initiatives were announced in the Minister’s Budget speech following her pre-budget interaction in February 2010. Several of these initiatives have now crystalised into draft policies. Four such policies, viz., a New policy for port connectivity and other connectivity works (named New R3i policy-Railways’ Infrastructure for Industry Initiative), private freight terminal policy, special freight train operation scheme and policy on auto and ancillary hubs were recently uploaded on the Ministry’s website for consultation and the delegates had been invited in this workshop to provide their feedback on these policies so that their suggestions could be considered before their notification.

Salient features of these policies were presented and a number of useful suggestions to make the policies attractive and viable were received in the course of the interaction. This would help in giving finishing touch to the polices so that the final notified polices would be able to achieve their intended purpose of kindling adequate investor interest and speeding up the process of augmentation of terminal/line capacity and rolling stock.

A number of useful suggestions from the industry delegates were also received in respect of the polices/projects currently under consideration in the Ministry namely, construction of segments of DFC, newline/doubling and gauge conversion projects, connectivity projects to link coal and iron ore mines, setting up of bottling plants for clean drinking water, construction of multi-level parking complexes at stations and laying of Optic Fibre Cables.