Indian Railways to allow private players to buy train coaches

Indian Railways will soon formulate a policy that will allow private firms to lease and buy railway coaches to run theme-based cultural, religious and other tourist circuit trains. The ministry of railways have constituted an executive director-level committee to formulate the policy and terms and conditions of the project, according to an official release. The release stated that the Indian railways is planning to expand rail based tourism among people through leasing of coaching stock to interested parties.

“This is aimed to tap the potential of the tourism sector and leverage the core strengths of the professionals of the tourism sector in tourism activities like marketing, hospitality, integration of services, reach with the customer base, expertise in development/identification of tourist circuits etc,” the release added. The coaches can be leased according to the desired configuration of interested parties. The policy will allow the leasing of bare shells and the purchase of coaches.

This will also permit private parties to conduct minor refurbishment of coaches and leasing of coaches for a minimum period of 5 years. This is extendable till codal life of coaches.

“Indian Railways will levy haulage charges, nominal stabling charges and lease charges. (No lease charges for outright purchase),” the release stated.

“No haulage for maintenance runs, third-party advertising will be allowed inside trains and branding of trains will also be permitted,” the notification added.