Indian Railway to showcase Bharat Gaurav Train Scheme

GUWAHATI: Indian Railway launched the 'Bharat Gaurav Train' scheme recently with the objective to showcase India's rich cultural heritage. Theme based tourist circuit trains will be run to leverage the core strength of the professionals of the tourism sector.

Under this scheme, registered service providers will be offered train rakes under 'Right to Use' model by Indian Railways of 'Bharat Gaurav Trains' for a minimum period of two years and maximum of upto the residual codal life. Service provider will have the flexibility to decide business model including themes, routes, itinerary, and tariff including train branding, naming and third party advertisement rights. During peak period, service providers can place hassle free demands for Full Tariff Rate (FTR) trains without facing the crisis for non-availability of coaches. In this connection a meeting was held recently at Maligaon between NF Railway officials and service providers/ tour operators.

The service providers/ tour operators need to fulfil certain financial conditions for leasing the rakes. These conditions includes registration fee of Rs 1 lakh (non refundable), rake security deposit of Rs 1 crore (refundable), right to use charge (per coach per year), stabling charge Rs 1000 per rake per day and fixed haulage charge (per coach per year). Variable charges will be applicable for operation on per kilometre on set of coaches.

Along with financial implications, the service providers/ tour operators also need to provide documents to prove their eligibility for the participation in the 'Bharat Gaurav Train' scheme. The documents consist of individual PAN Card (self attested), Partnership firm – Certificate of Registration, Company – Certificate of incorporation, Society – Society registration certificate, Trust - Registration certificate of Trust, Joint Ventures (Unincorporated/ Incorporated) – Agreement and or Registration copy & Consortium (Unincorporated/ Incorporated) – Agreement and or Registration copy.

Allotments of rakes will be on all India priority. Alternatively, service providers have the option of procurement of new coaches directly from production units for this purpose. Plans for routing and timing of the trains can also be decided as per bidder's feasibility. Service providers will be at liberty to decide the business model and tariff, stated a press release.

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