‘Yatrigan kripya dhyan dein’-150 private trains soon!

A high-powered panel has cleared the road for rolling out nearly 150 private trains on 100 routes

These private trains will be operational in the Mumbai-Delhi and Howrah-Delhi sectors, which will compete with Rajdhani.

Two Tejas trains have been handed over for running by Railways-controlled IRCTC on the Delhi-Lucknow and Mumbai-Ahmedabad routes as a pilot for "private sector".

The committee's report is likely to pave the way for a massive competition to the services currently being offered by the state transporter.

The panel was set up by minister Piyush Goyal after Railway Board chairman VK Yadav flagged off private trains in the Centre's 100 days' agenda.

The agenda is to promote rich Indian and global industrialists into the Indian Railways.

Hiking Railway fares is also on the cards. The government wants to reduce the subsidies through a ‘Give it up’ campaign.

It is important to note that an overwhelming majority of the railway passengers today belong to the poor and low-income sections.

Providing cheap and affordable travel is the Constitutional responsibility of the government.

Reducing subsidies and raising fares is nothing but a ploy to favour the private operators who would be operating the trains only for profits.

Another proposal in the Action Plan is the corporatisation of the production units.

The 7 production units including the associated workshops are proposed to be ‘hived off’ to the ‘Indian Railway Rolling Stock Company’.

This is nothing but an attempt to hand over and outsource production to the private players killing our public sector’s indigenous manufacturing capacity.

CITU and all its affiliated unions and federations have opposed the privatisation of the cheapest mode of transport and unitedly resist the move.

All the unions of the railway employees strongly oppose the privatisation of Indian railways in any form.