Sixteen private and public sector players, including GMR Group, Bharat Forge, GatewayRail, Sterlite, Jasan Infra, Medha Servo Drives, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Titagarh, Hind Rectifiers and JKB Infrastructure, participated in an online meeting with top Railways officials on Tuesday to discuss the project to run private trains, it is learnt.

These were the potential operators who participated in the meeting, said an official to BusinessLine .

Some big potential operators were conspicuous by their absence in the meeting, said another source, without naming any company. They might step in at later stages, he added.

High risks

The operating and financial risk in the project is expected to be high. In a first, the Railways had on July 1 invited bids from private operators to run trains in a whole bunch of routes.

In the virtual meeting, it was clarified that the revenue earned from tickets will go into the accounts of players, said a source in the know.

Potential bidders had concerns about why they were being asked to pay the revenue share if they were already being asked to pay haulage charges for using the railway infrastructure. Potential bidders also had concerns about how they would be penalised if they did not meet the requisite quality of service,according to people privy to what transpired in the meeting.

Rolling stock companies that had earlier evinced interest include Alstom, Bombardier, Siemens and Talgo. BusinessLine could not reach out to players to independently confirm.

The Railways will also be providing the details of passenger traffic being handled on the routes under bidding, according to an official statement. This will enable bidders to undertake their due diligence in the project.

Post Covid-19, the size of crowd that these trains will see is expected to change, posing a challenge for the players who are assessing the risk.

Eased qualifications

In the revised bid documentsreleased in July, the Railways hasdone away with the need for corporate players to have prior experience in airport, ports, hotels, airlines, shipping, travel or tourism. This has been done to attract more players and increase competition. This marked a departure from its position in January when it had felt such experience was necessary for industry players to run India’s first set of private trains.

The revised qualifying document was based on feedback from potential bidders on the draft document issued in January. The qualifying conditions in the draft bid were so stringent that not many players were making the cut to operate the trains, said sources.

Now, the qualifying bids have been tweaked to attract players with enough funds, who can then tie up with companies that have modern technology.