Private Trains on Indian Railways network: Private players who will be operating trains on the Indian Railways network will have no upper limit to fix the fares and will not require any approval from any authority for it, according to an IE report. This was clarified by Piyush Goyal chaired Railway Ministry recently. At a recent pre-application meeting, a set of queries was raised by prospective bidders on various aspects of the government’s decision to give out 109 routes to run as many as 151 trains to private players for 35 years, according to the report. The national transporter, while replying to those queries said the private train fares will be market-driven, and no approval is contemplated.
According to sources quoted in the report, Indian Railways may need approval from the Cabinet or even Parliament sanction to make this provision legally tenable. Since under the Railways Act, only the Union government or the Railway Ministry can decide fares for passenger trains in India, they said
