RailEnquiry

India needs to work on a viable financing model before introducing high-speed trains that will run at 300 km an hour, says Henri Poupart-Lafarge , president of transport business at French engineering and capital goods conglomerate Alstom.

The company , which is building metro rail transport capacity in India, sees 20-30 % year-on-year growth in the country . In an interview with Rachita Prasad, Lafarge talks about the challenges in developing mass transit systems in India and how the country can overcome them.

Infrastructure has seen a slowdown globally. What has been the trend in railway transport projects and what is the outlook?

Infrastructure investment in the developed world is quite significant and even today a major part of Alstom's business comes from there. We see high-volume growth in developing markets such as India and China. In India, we see 20-30 % growth yearon-year or even more if Railways announce some of the very large publicprivate partnership (PPP) projects. In the 12th Five-Year Plan, Indian Railways plans to invest almost four times of what it had budgeted to invest in the 11th Plan, primarily to improve rail safety and signaling. This presents a big opportunity for Alstom.

What are the biggest challenges in the Indian market?

Urban transportation was relegated to the bottom half of the list of India's infrastructure requirements over the past few decades. It has now risen to prominence, driven by a massive need to provide sustainable solutions to India's burgeoning urban population. One of the major challenges would be financing these outlays.

This puts a huge onus on policy makers and the government to provide urban mass transit solutions and calls for appropriate funding mechanism, safeguarding the environment and speeding up land acquisition for transportation projects. It is also imperative to quicken the award of rail contracts to speed up development in this sector.

Do you see India introducing high-speed train network anytime in the near future? What is the potential in this space?

High-speed trains are already operational in Europe. Countries such as Turkey and Morocco have also introduced high-speed trains. So, we can anticipate that India will also move towards that direction in the near future.

Six corridors have been identified for high-speed rail in India. However, implementation of these is dependent upon a viable financial model, which is yet to be established. The enormous investment required for creating a dedicated high-speed rail infrastructure will not be viable only on the basis of fare revenues.