The Hindu Business Line : Indian, French Railways plan to cooperate

New Delhi, Jan. 24 Indian Railways and French National Railways,SNCF, will sign an agreement on Friday to cooperate on areas including high-speed rail, safety, use of IT, safety, signalling and telecom. The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its approval for signing of an MoU between Ministry of Railways, Government of India and SNCF, French National Railways, Mr P.R. Dasmunsi, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, said here. The MoU, to be valid for three years, will help promote cooperation in the rail sector between French National Railways and Indian Railways.

The areas of cooperation include high-speed rail, increasing line capacity, safety, signalling, telecom, power supply, IT, training, maintenance and upgrading of tracks and structures, electric or diesel traction stock, regional and urban development.

Another MoU

Incidentally, Indian Railways also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) recently with the Chinese Railways envisaging development of rail-related programmes of mutual interest, consultations, training and visits to each others’ facilities.

Valid for three years, the areas in which cooperation with Chinese Railways will be sought are raising speed on existing routes, development of world-class stations, heavy haul operations, development of multi-modal logistics parks and research and development.