Chennai, November 20, : , S.Ramadoss, founder of PMK said Saturday that Centre should abandon its attempts to privatize train services.The Centre failed to attract private investors to fund 13 trains within Tamil Nadu as well as those originating in the state. Ramadoss said no private party had shown interest in operating express trains from Chennai to Trichy/Madurai/Tirunelvelli/Kanniyakumari/Coimbatore/Delhi/Mumbai/Kolkata/Jaipur/Hyderabad/ Bengaluru, Kanyakumari and Ernakulam
Ramadoss stated that the public sector was not interested in bidding on more than 95% of the train tenders at the all-India level.
According to him, privatizing passenger train services would result in a rise in fare for the poor.
47% of passenger fares are currently cross-subsidized by freight traffic.If the trains become privatized, then passenger fares could rise at least 70% if the winner has to make a profit.
Ramadoss stated that the terms of revenue sharing with Indian Railways by the private side and the fact that only 10% of the train being privatized are deterrents to the private sector showing an interest.
PMK Leader said that the government should not relax the conditions but scrap plans to privatize train services.
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