Indian Railways started its journey on 16 April 1853 with a mere 21 miles from Bombay to Thane. Today it is the third largest rail network under the single management in terms of route length. Under vision 2020 it has an ambition to be the number one in coming years. It is a vehicle of inclusive development, national integration and a catalyst of creation of large scale business & employment opportunities while taking care of the challenge of climate change.

India’s GDP is expected to exceed US$ 2 trillion (Rs. 90 lakh crore) by the year 2020 and Indian Railways is aiming to take its gross revenue to around 3% of it in the next 10 years. With the GDP at this level, it has the potential to grow to around Rs. 270,000 crore of revenue from around Rs. 90,000 crore at present. The ambitious goal of 10% growth in the next 10 years cannot be achieved without developing a sharper commercial focus, amending the existing policies and creating adequate capacity while expanding and modernizing of:

• Rail network from 64,099 kms to 89,000 kms
• Doubling/multiplying lines for more than 30,000 kms of route compared to 18,000 kms today
• 33,000 kms route to be electrified from the present of 19,000 kms
• Saving 15% of energy through an improved energy efficiency in operations
• Re-inventing passenger services
• Increase in annual production of passenger coaches from 2500 per year at present to 10,000 and procurement of wagons from a level of 25,000 to 75,00 wagons/year in next three years
• At least 4 high-speed rail projects with a train speed of 250-350 kmph
• Developing 50 world class stations comparable with the best in the world, setting up of multimodal logistic parks
• Dedicated freight corridors (DFC) on the Eastern (Ludhiana-Dankuni) and Western (Mumbai-Delhi) routes to be operational well before 2020. Additionally North-South (Delhi-Chennai), East-West (Howrah-Mumbai), Southern (Chennai-Goa) and East coast (Kharagpur-Vijayvada) to increase the railway share of freight movement from 35% to at least 50% (ton-kilometer)
• Run professional parcel services like air cargo services
• Commercial use of railway land and providing telecom & IT services by using 64,000 kms long ‘right of way’ for laying optic fibers, signaling towers and other infrastructure assets in collaboration between Railtel corporation and other private sector companies
• Using technological excellence in designing and re-designing of modern coaches, high capacity of wagons, track signaling, rolling stock, anti collision devices, mechanical cleaning of trains, stations and platforms
• Collaborating with premier educational institutes for postgraduate and doctoral studies in railway infrastructure and service sector

by investment of roughly 14,00,000 crore partially funded and supported by government and remaining investment by going through Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives.

India Rail Conference
In order to discuss the challenges and opportunities in achieving Rs. 270,000 crore of revenue from railway operations, AM events a division of ASAPP Media Information Group brings you its 2nd Annual International conference IndiaRail 2010 to discuss, deliberate and share the national and international experiences on expansion & modernization of rail network.