PIB News Update: Indian Railways today opened the applications submitted by various entities in response to the RFQs for PPP in Passenger Train Operations Project. MoR has received excellent response.In all 120 Applications have been received for the 12 Clusters, from 15 applicant firms.
It may be noted that Ministry of Railways (MOR) had invited Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for private participation in operation of passenger train services over 12 Clusters comprising 140 Origin Destination pair of routes through introduction of 151 modern Trains to increase high quality trains operated on the network.
This is the first major initiative of attracting private investment for running Passenger Trains over Indian Railway Network. The project is expected to entail private sector investment of about Rs 30,000 crores.
The private entities for undertaking the project would be selected through a transparent two-stage competitive bidding process comprising of Request for Qualification (RFQ) and Request for Proposal (RFP).
The RFQ for 12 clusters were published on 01 July 2020.
MoR will expeditiously complete the evaluation of Applications and RFP documents will be made available to the qualified applicants by November 2020. MoR has targeted to award all the Clusters by February, 2021.
Details of Participation Cluster wise
| SN | Cluster Name | Number of RFQs received |
| 1 | Mumbai 1 | 9 |
| 2 | Mumbai 2 | 12 |
| 3 | Delhi 1 | 10 |
| 4 | Delhi 2 | 12 |
| 5 | Chandigarh | 9 |
| 6 | Howarh | 9 |
| 7 | Patna | 9 |
| 8 | Prayagraj | 10 |
| 9 | Secunderabad | 10 |
| 10 | Jaipur | 10 |
| 11 | Chennai | 9 |
| 12 | Bengaluru | 11 |
| Total | 120 |
Details of Participants
| SN | Applicant’s Name |
| 1 | Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited |
| 2 | Sainath sales and Services Pvt Ltd |
| 3 | IRB Infrastructure Developers Limited |
| 4 | Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation LImited |
| 5 | GMR Highways Limited |
| 6 | Welspun Enterprises Limited |
| 7 | Gateway Rail freight Limited |
| 8 | Cube Highways and Infrastructure III Pvt Ltd |
| 9 | Malempati Power Private Limited |
| 10 | L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited |
| 11 | RK Associates and Hoteliers Pvt Ltd |
| 12 | Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarrriles, S.A |
| 13 | PNC Infratech Ltd |
| 14 | Arvind Aviation |
| 15 | BHEL |