India plans rail links to Bhutan, Burma, possibly to Iran, says paper

The Asian Age: 23 April, 2006

New Delhi, 22 April: For one who seldom travels abroad, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav's Ministry of Railways is making a concerted effort to leave enough footprints on foreign lands to give New Delhi, diplomatic manoeuvre in her extended neighbourhood.

Mr Yadav's aides hope nurturing the markets in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa would obviate the need for the countries in those regions to look beyond New Delhi for appropriate technology and funds.

Also, by entering into strategic tie-ups with key countries like Germany, Japan and Russia, the decision-makers in the ministry of railways hope to match the phenomenal growth of the Chinese Railways.

(In 1992, China had 58,000 route-km as compared to 62,000 route-km in India. Within a decade, China added about 24,000 km of new track and grew 24 per cent to reach 72,000 km as compared to India's one per cent growth.)

Sources say that on the drawing board are not just plans to establish rail links with Bhutan, Burma and Bangladesh that can be extended to Southeast Asia and westwards up to Iran and beyond.

There is also the desire to become an integral part of the growth of rail network in South Asia by helping the countries in India's sphere of influence to gain access to new technologies and training of personnel.

To further their global ambitions, two of the Indian Railways public sector units - IRCON [Indian Railway Construction Company] and RITES [Rail India Technical and Economic Services] - are considering the setting up of more joint ventures in their quest for investing in projects abroad.

"India's neighbours are our biggest market. We could become the manufacturing base for South Asia and Africa and India ought to nurture these markets," says Railway Board chairman J.P. Batra.

During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit, the Indian railways will sign an MoU [Memorandum of Understanding] with its German counterpart. "It will [promote] mutually beneficial exchange...[ellipses as published] Germany has technology and India, a good market," he observes.

The Indian railways, Mr Batra told this correspondent, was expanding its infrastructure and needed to induct new technology for the proposed freight corridor. "Let us see how we can benefit from each other," he says.

The Railway Board chairman explains that Germany has done a lot of work in public-private partnership in property development. Germany is also a major player in signalling and wagon technology.

The MoU with Germany will be similar to the MoU India has signed with Russia. Incidentally, Russia is one of the principal investors in the German and the Chinese container traffic businesses.

(In Beijing on 21 March, the Russian and Chinese railways signed an agreement on the mutual use of heavy-duty containers for the import and export of freight in the presence of the heads of state of their two countries.)

Rail Bhavan is also toying with the idea of replicating the Bimstec (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) training programmes to other regions too.

Mr Yadav has already announced that the training programmes now being imparted to the railway personnel from the Bimstec countries will be extended to the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation countries too.

"The training programme has received overwhelming response (and) generated goodwill for the Indian railways. It has been decided to extend this training programme to Mekong-Ganga Cooperation countries," he said in his Budget speech.

The Indian railways has proposed a rail link to Burma and also identified five possible rail routes to Bhutan. A team consisting of officials from the Railway Board recently visited Burma as a part of an initial recee.

According to sources, the team is understood to have made an estimation of the approximate cost and submitted it to the ministry of external affairs. The project will be piloted by the ministry of external affairs.

Besides Burma, New Delhi is also exploring the possibilities of a rail link between Bhutan and India. The RITES has been asked to conduct a feasibility study of five routes, two of which link West Bengal with Bhutan and the rest start in Assam.

Mr Batra says like the Bimstec, a proposal is under consideration for the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) that will leverage India's technical facilities and manufacturing capabilities.

He told this newspaper that a $250-million soft loan that will include a "transport component" was under consideration for the "Team 9" countries [include Burkina Faso, Chad, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Senegal] in West Africa that includes Chad, Ghana and Senegal.

The decision has been taken after the "Team 9" countries made a joint request for a loan for rail transport, including the supply of engines and coaches besides maintenance at common workshop.

Elsewhere in Africa, Ircon is finalising a proposal for building a rail line in Sudan. The PSU [Public Sector Undertakings] is also engaged in a project in Mozambique where it will rehabilitate that country's railway system. The PSUs of the Indian railways are also keen on spreading their wings in South America where IRCON is among several international players competing for projects in Brazil and Venezuela.