In spite of the bearish sentiments in the stock market, Indian companies operating in rail infrastructure space are upbeat about the Rail Budget. They feel that the three new freight corridors will open opportunities worth ₹2.5 lakh crore.

These companies are looking forward to orders from freight corridors, rail electrification and station modernisation projects.

Rajeev Jyoti, CEO of L&T’s Railway Business, said that the three freight corridors of about 5,500 km length are of immense interest to the company. The size of investments in these projects could be as high as ₹2.5 lakh crore. These investments will not come up tomorrow but it is definitely a pipeline of projects, which the Indian Railways are planning to carry out, “In such projects L&T participates very aggressively and it is a highly competitive space,” Jyoti said.

In rail infrastructure business, L&T with is pan India footprint has orders of about ₹18,000 crore.

SC Mittal, CEO of IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd, said that the Minister has emphasised on capacity creation, which is a very positive development. Setting the target of gauge conversion and track laying from 7 km to 19 km per day will provide new orders to the companies. Just like the NHAI roads, the tracks will be developed on PPP model, he said.

Mittal pointed that Prabhu has also hiked the plan outlay to ₹8.5 lakh crore over the next five years, is a huge jump in targets over the previous years. Vineet Agarwal, Managing Director of TCI, said that the proposal of building dedicated freight corridors to boost North-South, East-West connectivity will also prove very useful. Commissioning dedicated freight corridors are the need of the hour. Connectivity of airports with railways would give a boost to the perishable goods sector and this would encourage the use of multi-modal transportation, he said.

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