Railways

India has the fourth-largest railway system in the world. The Indian Railways consists of a total track length of 126,366 km over a 67,956 km of route along with 7,335 stations. The railways operates 13,523 passenger trains and 9,146 freight trains daily. The railway sector in India has loaded 1418.1 MT of freight during FY 2021-22, registering an 15% increase in freight loading. Indian Railways is the single largest employer in India and eighth largest in the world, employing approximately 1.3 Mn people.
Metro presence in 9 cities out of 18 cities with operational network, and adding 5 more cities metro projects or proposals for the development for a metro underway. Many of the cities with the operational metro network have sizeable expansion plans. In total, about 440 km of new metro network development has been approved and another 800 kms of metro rail network is under the proposal stage which total costs worth Rs. 2 trillion approximately.

Indian Railways is developing Train Collision Avoidance System (KAVACH) in areas such as signalling and telecommunication with 15,000 kms being converted into automatic signalling and 37,000 kms to be fitted with KAVACH. 2,000 km of network will be brought under Kavach, the indigenous technology for safety and capacity augmentation. This offer opportunities for Global experts to participate in upcoming upgradation.

Indian Railway network is growing at a healthy rate. In the next five years, Indian railway market is expected to be the third largest, accounting for 10% of the global market. The government has announced two key initiatives for seeking private investments-running passenger trains by private operators across the railways network and redevelopment of railway stations across the country. According to Indian Railways, these projects have the potential of bringing an investment of over US$ 7.5 billion in the next five years.

The government has prepared a master plan to revamp 200 railway stations. Overhead spaces will be created on the stations which will have world-class facilities including waiting lounges and food courts, besides amusement facilities for children.Railway Station Upgradation is priority for Government of India, 47 railway stations modernisation plan already processed & physical work has started for 32 Railway Stations. The Railways is being transformed.

The railways has floated a policy under which it plans to replace its entire fleet of vehicles that run on diesel, biofuels or even natural gas with electric vehicles by December 2025, in a big boost to the Centre’s ambitious plan to make India a 100-per cent electric vehicle nation by 2030. India needs to set up 46,000 EV charging stations.

The railways has been allotted Rs 1.40 lakh crore in the Budget 2022-23. The national transporter will procure 90,000 wagons in the next three financial years, for which the process of issuing tenders will start from March 16. The estimated cost of this is about Rs 31,000 crore. Of these 90,000, 32,300 are open wagons, 39,000 wagons used for cement transportation, 7,500 wagons used for steel pipes transportation, 3,000 for coal transportation and 8,000 for iron ore transportation.

This offer ample opportunities for Global Players in this Sector to grow and become part of Indian Infrastructure Development.