Indian Railways aims to expand its network and improve passenger experience over the next five years on the back of multiple tracks, 3,000-4,000 more trains and upgradation of coaches across the entire rail network.

The state-run behemoth currently operates around 13,000 passenger trains and 9,000 goods trains and aims to add nearly 1,500 more trains by 2023 as it looks to aggressively boost capacity.

"We have been trying to provide better conditions in coaches. We are working towards providing better service to passengers. Coaches with new facilities will go into Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains and the coaches of these trains will move to mail express trains," chairman V. K. Yadav said at a press conference recently.

"Railways is focusing on infrastructure development and will work on decongesting routes by adding multiple tracks. We are also modernising the signalling and completing electrification. These steps will help in improving punctuality, reduce travel time and increase the speed of trains," Yadav added.

The demand for more trains can be ascertained from the fact that in 2018-19, there was an unmet demand in the form of 8.85 crore wait-listed passengers.

As part of the first phase of privatisation, railways plan to introduce private operators on 150 trains on 100 routes. As per railway officials, these 100 routes have been formed into clusters with each cluster of around 12 rakes.

The current plan for private trains entails procurement, operation and maintenance of trains by private operators while loco-pilots or engine drivers and guards will be from Indian Railways only.

The private entity shall pay necessary fixed charges (haulage charges) including energy charges to Indian Railways and shall have the freedom to decide on the market-determined fare, to be charged from its passengers, officials said.

With an expected reduction in journey time by a minimum of 10-15 percent with an operating speed of 130 km per hour, better food and beverages, retail services and services "akin to airlines," Indian Railways is hopeful that introduction of private operators will make operations more efficient and will lead in shift of travel from road and air to rail.

"This would increase the revenue to railways in terms of haulage charges and share in the revenue of the private entity. The competition and the increased options to the public would result in improved quality of service ad also improve the economy in operations," a senior railway official said.

A group of secretaries under the leadership of NITI Aayog chief executive officer Amitabh Kant is advising railways on the terms and conditions for private passenger train operators to operate trains and has held five meetings up to the end of January 2020, railways ministry informed Lok Sabha recently.

"The draft request for qualification and the draft concession agreement have been uploaded on the websites of Niti Aayog and Indian Railways for seeking feedback from the stakeholders. The details and other modalities in this regard have not been finalised," railways added in the written response.

In January 2020, railways increased passenger train fares by up to 4 paise per km on all non-suburban trains from January 1, in the first fare hike in the last five years. However, the fare revision will only translate into an additional annual revenue of around Rs 2,300 crore for Indian Railways as it applies to trains that carry just 34 percent of the total passenger traffic.

"Indian Railways continues to incur losses in passenger segment under social service obligations, like- on account of concessions in passenger fares, on EMU suburban services, on uneconomic branch lines, on strategic lines, due to pricing of fares below cost etc," railways minister Piyush Goyal had informed Lok Sabha in a written reply in December 2019.

Railways incurred a loss of Rs 31,128 crore in 2017-18 on account of pricing of passenger fares below the cost of operations, according to government data. These losses stood at Rs 25,561 crore in 2016-17 and Rs 22,262 crore in 2015-16. During 2017-18, Indian Railways recorded its worst operating ratio in 10 years at 98.44 percent, as per the latest report by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

In the case of electrification of broad gauge routes, railways has been able to electrify 2,454 route km till January 1, 2020, but still has the remaining 3,456 route km left to be electrified out of the total target of 6,000 route km for 2019-20 (April-March). Overall, there is a mammoth target of 28,810 km to be electrified till 2023-24 with another 6,000 route km in 2020-21, 6,000 route km in 2021-22, 6,500 km in 2022-23 and 4,310 km by December 2023.