The Railway Minister was speaking at a pre-budget interaction with trade and industry and the representatives of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, major industry associations, both national and state level and important rail customers, here today. Chairman, Railway Board, Shri S.S. Khurana and all the Board Members were present on the occasion.

The minister said that investments are required in the field of producing more railway coaches, more railway locos, more wagons and various ancillary components. She said that there are ample opportunities for the industry to make investments and develop their own business and at the same time facilitate development and expansion of Indian Railways. Referring to the Vision-2020 document of Indian Railway presented by her in the last session of the Parliament, the Railway Minister said that the document has spelt out the future needs of Railway Sector and the possible areas requiring massive investments. She said that Vision document has chalked out a very ambitious plan of creating 25000 Kilometres of Railway Network in a period of ten years. She invited industry to come forward to make investments to help Indian Railways achieve this mega target. She said that the investment opportunities are existing right from Port Connectivity Projects, Industrial Hub Connectivity Projects to the projects for facilitating increased transportation of core items like Coal, Cement, Iron ore etc. She emphasised that augmentation of wagon manufacture capacity is the need of hour to meet increasing demand of rakes by the industry and Railways will do its best to facilitate availability of sufficient wagons for transporting bulk commodities. She said that private participation could also be considered in activities like Road Over Bridges and manning of unmanned level crossings. She also talked of commercial utilisation of surplus land and space. She also categorically clarified that core service sector will remain with the Railways and Private Participation will be invited in infrastructure, tourism, logistic park etc. She also stressed on the need to reduce red-tapism and to simplify the procedures and to remove bottlenecks coming in the way of facilitating private sector engagement with the Railways. She also said that representatives of the Industry & Trade will also be included in the Railways' Users Consultative Committees at all levels.

In his opening remarks, the Chairman Railway Board Shri S.S. Khurana said that today's historic interaction has been organised in view of Railway Minister's ardent desire to involve all the stake-holders in an honest dialogue as an integral part of the formulation of major policy initiatives. Referring to Indian Railway's Vision-2020 document, Shri Khurana said that this path breaking visionary plan has been prepared under the guidance of Railway Minister and the forthcoming railway budget would attempt to embark on the challenging journey by taking the first step to achieve the goals mentioned in this document. He said that expansion of the network to connect un-served areas at a very ambitious rate of 2500 KM per annum, doubling/quadrupling and electrification of key routes, completion of gauge conversion, raising of speed for both passenger and freight traffic, elimination of shortages of any kind in freight and passenger service, prevention & elimination of accidents and equipment failures technological upgradation & modernisation are some of the major goals set in the Vision. It has been assessed that Railways would require an investment of the order of Rs.14,00,000 cr. over the next ten years. He said that there are therefore great challenges for growth and generation of internal resources and execution of identified projects through PPP.

This pre-budget interaction was aimed at obtaining innovative ideas for placing the Indian Railways on a sustained and rapid growth path. The interaction session provided a forum for receiving suggestions and inviting proposals for investment through Public Private Partnership (PPP) in various ongoing and future projects on Railways.

More than 200 representatives of trade and industry and Chambers of Commerce and Industry from across the country participated in the historical interaction which saw Railway Minister in a direct two-way dialogue with the Captains of the Industry. The participating agencies among others included FICCI, ASSOCHAM, CII, PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry etc. The event assumes significance in the light of the fact that Railway Minister, the entire Railway Board, the representatives of Railway Employees' Associations and the members of various expert committees of Railways and representatives of Trade and Industry sat together to deliberate upon building the Indian Railway System as the powerful means of transportation and developing future needs of the Railways.

Dr Amit Mitra, Secretary-General, FICCI and Chairman of expert Committee of Railways for developing Business models and innovative funding through PPP instruments and Shri Samar Jha, Additional Member (Budget) Railway Board moderated and conducted the proceeding of the meeting.#