Piyush Goyal rules out privatisation of railways SC

“There is no question of privatisation of the railways. It cannot be privatised,” railway minister Piyush Goyal told the Lok Sabha in his reply to a discussion on demands for grants for his ministry.

The Narendra Modi government on Friday ruled out privatisation of the railways but said it would encourage public private partnerships and corporatise some units.

The Narendra Modi government on Friday ruled out privatisation of the railways but said it would encourage public private partnerships and corporatise some units.

“There is no question of privatisation of the railways. It cannot be privatised,” railway minister Piyush Goyal told the Lok Sabha in his reply to a discussion on demands for grants for his ministry.

Responding to claims by opposition leaders that the government was ushering in privatisation, Goyal said he had time and again rejected such accusations and was reiterating there was no such question.

However, the railway ministry would invite investment for new technology, lines and projects in the national interest, he said. “If we have to increase facilities in the railways, obviously we need investment for it. We have taken a decision to encourage public private partnerships and we will also corporatise some units.

“We should invite investment in the national interest if someone is ready to get new technology, new stations, projects and lines,” he said.

Goyal claimed the Modi government had performed much better in enhancing infrastructure and safety parameters of the national transporter as compared to previous Congress regimes.

His hour-long speech witnessed frequent protests by Congress members, with their leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury charging him with misleading the House.

Goyal defended the decision to discontinue tabling of separate railway budgets, terming them “political budgets used to sell dreams of new trains and railway lines to win elections.”

He said the Modi government had inherited a dilapidated railway network, but had managed to turn it around in the past five years by laying new tracks and improving security and facilities for passengers.

Goyal said tracks grew by 39,000 km in 64 years, while in the past five years it grew by 7,000 km. Similarly, the railways increased its running km by 12,000 km between 1950 and 2014, while from 2014-2019, it grew by 5,000 running km.

“The work for a dedicated freight corridor started in 2007. From 2007 to 2014, they had not even managed one km of track linking. We took on this work and in just five years, we have completed 1,900 km of track linking,” he said.

He claimed that during Congress rule, from 2007 to 2014, not one coach was manufactured in Rae Bareli’s Modern Coach Factory (MCF) and the first coach was made in August 2014 shortly after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power. Rae Bareli is the Lok Sabha constituency of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

“We want the MCF to increase its manufacturing capacity to 5,000 and the trains coming out of there to go to the entire world. We want it to be the largest factory in the world,” he said.

Between 2004 and 2009, Goyal said around 206 accidents took place every year, while the number was 153 between 2009 and 2011. He claimed that during BJP rule, the crash count came down to around 100 every year.

Goyal’s reference to the alleged inaction of the UPA government to the Mumbai train blasts – a series of seven coordinated blasts that took place in a span of 11 minutes on July 11, 2006 -- drew loud protests from the Congress.

He asserted that the terrorists would have been given a befitting reply had Prime Minister Narendra Modi been in power.

Goyal also praised Modi’s focus on the railways and said the growth the sector had seen was largely because of his vision. “A tea vendor selling tea in front of trains during his childhood saw this country and understood the significance of the railways,” he said.