Pvt help in non-core activities only: Lalu

During the course of his speech, Lalu also gave a fair indication of his ideas in the build-up to this year’s Rail Budget. “In a competitive market, one cannot succeed by increasing tariffs. So, we have increased income by increasing load per train and decreasing fares and freight rates. Increase business, reduce per unit cost, reduce tariff, increase share in market and earn record profit. This is the basic mantra of our strategy which economists call economy of scale,” he said.

Ruling out indiscriminate privatisation of Railways, Lalu said his ministry was not opposed to public private partnerships (PPP). “All we want is that the core activity of running trains remains with Railways and private sector is invited for non-core activities,” he said.

“We are preparing a plan for modernisation of Railways for which we will need around Rs 3,00,000 crore in the next five years. Around 40 per cent of this is expected to come through PPPs,” he said enumerating container train operations, construction of dedicated freight corridor, modernisation of railway stations, setting up of logistic parks and warehouses as some of the areas where his ministry was expecting private sector participation.

Batting for PPPs, Lalu said experiences the world over show that infrastructure development through PPP is very useful. “It not only complement our limited resources but prepares a competitive environment too which improves work efficiency and reduces costs. In my view, PPP is only important when it provides for better quality infrastructure at low costs,” he said.

He further said that PPP was neither an obligation nor a fashion for Railways.