India and Germany holds talks on cooperation in the rail sector

The Dollar Business Bureau

India and Germany on Friday held wide ranging talks on several specific areas of mutual interest in the rail sector such as safety, speed raising, capacity enhancement of passenger and goods transport lines, etc.

India’s Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu held talks with Alexander Dobrindt, German Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, who is on an official visit to India from October 12-14, 2016, especially on the invitation extended by the Railway Minister.

“The two sides held wide ranging discussions on many specific areas of mutual interest in rail sector. The areas include speed raising, capacity increase of passenger & goods transport lines, safety, energy efficient rail operations, education & training, high speed rail, standards & norms and station development,” said an official release.

Both sides have decided to set up a joint working group of German Railways and Indian Railways for working on rail operations safety in order to help in Indian Railways’ Zero Accident Mission. The aim of the working group is to look into the technology, processes and training to improve the safety.

An official media release detailed that, “This working group on safety would be deliverable on Inter-Government Consultations tentatively planned in Berlin in May, 2017. The German Minister also extended invite to Indian Railway officials to visit Germany to see their technology and safety systems.”

Suresh Prabhu also requested the German side to extend their proposal of high speed rail study of Mysore -Bangalore–Chennai Corridor to Vijayawada city in Andhra Pradesh, in order to give boost to the development in region as this will link the major states in southern India.

The German Federal Minister acknowledged the request to extend the scope of study to Vijayawada and gave assurance to look into this issue positively. The study is entirely funded by Government of Germany and is expected to commence from January next year.