Ahead of the Prime Minister’s launch of the Skill India Mission on Wednesday, the Railways has tied up with the Ministry of Skill Development to offer ‘sparable’ space for training in its infrastructure, such as wayside stations, railway training centres, railway schools and institutes.

An agreement in this regard was signed here on Tuesday between the Railway Ministry and the Skill Development Ministry.

“Our schools can be made available and our employees can teach as part of their social duties,” said Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, adding that the Railways otherwise will have a ‘limited role’ to play.

Last week, the Railways already trained 5,500 people during the ‘Rail Pakhwara’, its outreach event, he added.

Skill Development Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy said “The Railways probably has the largest infrastructure in the world today. It has 7,000 stations, of which about 4,300 have good infrastructure, such as power, water, as also optical fibre network.”

The Railways already has 300 training centres and 150 schools, of which about 70 per cent have optical fibre cable network connections, a senior Railway official said later. When asked about payment for use of Railway optical fibre, the official said “that will have to be worked out with Railtel”. Railtel, a public sector unit, has a 43,000 km network across the country.

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