No Privatization of Rajdhani & Shatabdi Express: Piyush Goyal

Union Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal said on Friday that there were no plans to privatize Rajdhani or Shatabdi Express trains.

Goyal's statementcomes amid speculation that there was a proposal to rope in private operators.

Goyal, whileresponding to a query on the privatization of these trains and the entirenetwork said in a written reply that no such plan has been made. In its 100-dayplan, the ministry has proposed that it will offer two trains to IRCTC tooperate on haulage concept with ticketing, onboard services to be provided bythem.

The planproposed that the trains will run on important routes like the GoldenQuadrilateral and Diagonals connecting major cities. The proposal said that theRFQ/RFP will be floated in the next 100 days to initiate bidding.

Meanwhile,the railway worker unions have been up in arms against the proposal anddemanded to know why railways' production units are planned to be corporatized.The railways, in its 100-day plan has also proposed to hive off its sevenproduction units and associated workshops into a new entity called the IndianRailway Rolling Stock Company.