Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said on Thursday that the government has no plans to privatize the Indian Railways. The Railway Minister said this while replying to Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in Parliament, who had said on Wednesday that the central government should drop the idea of privatization of Indian Railways. Vaishnav said that there will be no privatization of railways.
He also said that about 800 crore people travel through railways every year. At the same time, the target of the Railways is to travel 1000 crore people. Responding to the opposition, Vaishnav asked all the states to work closely with the Center for better functioning of railways.
Congress leader Kharge said that about 2.65 lakh posts are lying vacant in the Railways. Kharge said that 3.18 lakh people are employed on daily wages and 9.67 lakh posts are regular. Questioning the bullet train, the Congress leader said that the government had talked about starting it in 2022 but the project is progressing at a slow pace.
Responding, the Railway Minister gave the example of bullet train in Japan and said that it has taken time to introduce new technologies there too. The E-5 technology was introduced in 2011, which is part of the Japanese high speed train. Talking about world class stations, Vaishnav said that the central government is working towards ‘One Station, One Product’ and as a pilot project, work has started on one station in each zone.
Vaishnav said, ‘We started the first Vande Bharat trains in 2019. Usually it takes four to seven years to bring such world class trains, but we have introduced them in two years.