Indian Railways have been trying to promote public-private partnerships (PPPs), but are unable to generate significant interest among private players, says the FICCI–E&Y infrastructure report released on Monday. The delay in building of modern greenfield railway station at New Delhi is one of the many instances that the report cites to reinforce the point. “The process has not been completed due to several issues that cropped up.”

The civil authorities of Delhi did not cooperate with the project, said Pradeep Bhatnagar, adviser (infrastructure), ministry of railways. This has happened at a time when New Delhi is hosting Commonwealth Games in October, 2010. “We are looking into the matters,” was his terse explanation on the issue.

The report further revealed a new coach factory was proposed for Rai Bareli, Uttar Pradesh under the PPP mode but the Indian railways is currently handling the project on its own. “During 1990 and 2007, the PPP investment accounted for Rs. 9.6 billion as compared to Rs. 435 billion in roads. In the same period, the number of PPP projects under roads were 133 vis-à-vis railways which recorded only 10.”

The report also painted dismal figure of railways network which has not kept pace with the growing traffic while freight and passenger traffic movement increased over the years. The report cited cost differential for projects as compared with roads, ownership of infrastructure components, operations and maintenance as key reasons for huge gap in PPP in roads and railways.

Decision-making process needed to be faster and single window clearance for all PPP projects was necessary to boost investment in the railways, said Kamal K Verma, regional director, CEC Taiwan, an infrastructure building company. Indian railways was keen pursue infrastructure but not maintenance and operations, observed Sankalp Shukla, CEO of Inlogistics Ltd.

The report suggested that Indian railways should learn from the success of PPP in other sectors, especially the highway sector.