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Mamuni Das

RailTel, a Rail Ministry PSU, will provide the network for the ATM kiosks while space will be given by the Rail Ministry.

RAILTEL Corporation of India Ltd has sought the Railway Ministry's approval to invite expressions of interest (EoI) from banks to set up ATMs at railway stations.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr K. K. Bajpeyee, RailTel Managing Director, said: "We had a meeting with several banks recently. Most of the major banks including Bank of Baroda, HDFC, ICICI, Punjab National Bank and State Bank of India have expressed their willingness to set up ATMs at the stations... We plan to start by putting up ATM kiosks at railway stations in major cities."

For the ATMs, RailTel would provide the network and the Ministry the space in the stations.

Asked about the time frame by which the EoIs are expected to be issued, Mr Bajpeyee said it would depend on the green signal from the Ministry.

On whether there would be a bidding process in case more than one bank is interested in setting up kiosks at one station, he said: "It is up to the banks to check the feasibility of setting up more than one ATM kiosks in a station. There may be a scope to put up more than one ATM kiosk in large railway stations such as in Delhi, Howrah and Mumbai."

RailTel is a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Railways and lays optical fibre cables along the tracks.

It takes care of the communication needs of the Indian Railways.

It provides backbone bandwidth services to telecom operators including Idea Cellular, Hutch and Tata Tele Services Ltd.

It is also targeting corporates for its broadband solutions. The PSU plans to set up about 50 cyber cafes in railway stations by March 2006.

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