Indian railway is Asia’s largest & world 2nd largest rail network. Privatization of Railway waiting hall is a good initiative of the ministry of the Indian railway in a way of providing efficiency in customer facilities. Ministry of railway is doing very fast work towards to privatization of the railway waiting hall. In 2017, ministry of railway alloted two railway stations Gandhinagar station (Gujrat), Habibganj station (Bhopal) to private sector agencies now these 2 stations have been fully privatized. Railway wants to provide better facilities to the passengers.
Passengers will get such benefits like a neat & clean hall with comfortable seating arrangements, RO Purified water vending machines, healthy refreshment & beverages counter, hygienic toilets, mobile laptop charging power units & many other things.
Ministry of railway will allot stations to private agencies to develop the waiting hall. These agencies will work on some stations as PPP (Public-private partnership) model. Agencies will provide commercial spaces for advertisement on such stations. Quality & comfort are the first priority of the government. The government will not invest capital in such projects. The investment would be totally privatized. There are a lot of job opportunities for the youngster. Many foreign agencies show their Interest to do these projects like France, Japan, Korea, etc.
CONCLUSION
According to the ministry of railway, it is profitable as the government would charge the operators. One of the private enterprises in Railway is IRCTC (Indian railway catering & tourism corporation) and now it has been successful in his business. Moreover, privatization of railway waiting hall is a good step of Indian railway towards modernizing the railway waiting hall.
Source – News 18
