Railways mull new policy on station development: Prabhu

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that the Railways had been suffering from "massive" lack of investments.

June 06, 2015 03:52 pm | Updated 04:03 pm IST - Kolkata

The Railways would soon announce a new policy aimed at developing the condition of stations by inviting “partners”, Railway minister Suresh Prabhu said on Saturday.

“We are coming out very soon with a regime for station development by inviting partners,” Mr. Prabhu said at a function here without elaborating further on who these partners would be.

“There are partners who can look after station development as the stations have huge potential,” he said later at a press conference.

The minister said, “If we get interested partners for developing the stations, then it is welcome,” adding that the Railways would have to come out of “unnecessary restrictive practices” which were “thwarting its growth”.

Primary job of the Railways was to provide transport, he said.

Mr. Prabhu said that the Railways had been suffering from “massive” lack of investments.

“We must do the same thing as China had done. China had made huge investments in developing the railway network. Railways will have to invest substantially,” he said.

This, he said, would help in building a world class cargo movement network. “An investment of Rs 8.5 lakh crore had been planned for the next five years,” Mr. Prabhu said.

Mr. Prabhu also said that the Railways were also inviting the state governments to form companies’ jointly contributing capital and take up projects considered important for the respective states.

“We have already MoUs in this regard with 20 state governments and urging all to do so,” he said.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.