BACKGROUND
India has the fifth largest railway network in the world which
is managed and operated by the Ministry of Railways, Government of
India (MOR). The MOR manages and operates the
trains on the Indian Railway (IR) network. Till
now, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited
(IRCTC), a Government of India owned listed
entity, was the only private entity (although owned by the
Government) permitted to operate passenger trains on select routes.
Despite the size of the IR network, there is a huge unmet demand
due to capacity constraints which often leads to loss of passenger
business to other modes of transport.
The MOR has now decided to permit private entities to undertake
passenger trains operations on select routes in India. This has
been done to:
