New Delhi, Feb 12: The Indian Railways has collaborated with Swiss firms for tunnelling works for various projects, including the Rishikesh-Karna Prayag New Railway Line and the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has informed the Rajya Sabha.
In a written reply on February 9 to a question by BJP MP Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, he also said that an MoU between the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) of the Swiss Confederation and the Ministry of Railways for technological cooperation in the railway sector is under consideration.
The areas of cooperation would be rolling stock, railway infrastructure, rail safety, train scheduling and operation improvement, multimodal transport, and new technologies and innovation, and any other area jointly identified by the participants, the minister added.
Tomar’s question was regarding MoU between Indian Railways and its Swiss counterpart for boosting operational efficiency of the Indian Railways. He also sought to know if the government has taken any measure to collaborate with its Swiss counterpart for efficient use of existing technology, especially in the areas of hub and spoke model and advanced tunnelling technology.
Vaishnaw said the Indian Railways’ central public sector enterprises have collaborated with Swiss firms in the area of tunnelling for various projects such as the Rishikesh-Karna Prayag New Railway Line and the Udampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link.
The 125-km Rishikesh-Karna Prayag project is being developed by the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) and the Udampur-Srinagar-Baramulla project is under the Indian Railway Construction International Limited (IRCON).–(PTI)
