March 14, 2002

    The Railways are all set to make a new beginning with private sector participation for building its infrastructure with a Build, Operate, Transfer(BOT) scheme, along the lines of the national highways. However, the scheme being followed by railway is different from the National Highway Authority of India ( NHAI) as it provides for Build-Own-Transfer (BOT) arrangement instead of Build-Operate-Transfer as is the case with NHAI scheme. In railway’s scheme, operations and maintenance of the asset will be by the railways due to integrated nature of railway traffic.

    Five projects have been taken up under new scheme i.e. BOT are as under:-

1. Track & Signalling works of Doubling of Utraitia-Chandrauli and Sultanpur-Bandhua Kalan (Northern Railway).
2. Amroha-Kankather doubling full work.
3. Talcher-Cuttack-Paradeep doubling-only 2^nd bridge on Mahanadi.
4. Bilaspur-Urkura 3^rd line-Bhatapara to Silyari section.

    This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways , Shri O.Rajagopal in a written reply to a question by Dr.Vijay Kumar Malhotra in Lok Sabha today.