a)     Mr. Dinesh Trivedi , Honb’le Minister of Railways, Government of India, at the Inaugural Session, said that the approach paper to the 12th Five Year Plan, envisaged a sum of 1 trillion US dollars in private investment for infrastructure. Over 50% of this amount, he said would be dedicated solely to the development of the railways.

b)    Mr. Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the Prime Minister, Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations, Government of India stated that the modernization of the Railways was critical given its economic significance, and added that an approach that strived towards “expansion, excellence and equity” would be required. Mr. Pitroda also said that Information Technology played a vital role in enabling the modernization, and a concerted focus on the increasing use of IT based solutions to create better management systems would have to be made

c)     Mr. B Muthuraman, President, Confederation of Indian Industry emphasized the role of the Industry in meeting the demand for private investments and also said that the International Rail Conference, currently in its 9th year, has played a critical role in enabling wide scale deliberations between all stakeholders.

d)    Mr. Sanjiv Handa, Member, Mechanical Railway Board said that the use of the more viable standard gauge system in the new high speed corridors that the government proposes to set up, stating that broad gauge system that is currently in use was merely “incrementalist” in nature and did not foster real progress.

e)     The Conference had close to 650 delegates, 300 exhibitors and a large number of visitors from India and overseas from the industry who felt that conference had served a platform for providing latest happenings in the Railway Sector.

The International Rail Conference with the theme “Rail Transportation in India: Moving to the Next Orbit” focused mainly on future of rail transportation in India, rolling stock - emerging trends and technologies including diesel and electric locomotives, high speed trains, system components, rail infrastructure including Track modernization, Integrated Rail management, Advances in Signaling and Telecom, Dedicated Freight Corridor, Upgradation of Railway Bridges, Propulsion technology, PPP, finance, investment, Operations, Maintenance, logistics and the changing face of urban transportation in India.

Indian Railways is the third largest rail network in the world under a single integrated management. It transports over 20 million passengers and 2.5 million tons of freight every day. It is expanding its network rapidly by executing several new lines, doubling and gauge conversion projects. IR’s Vision 2020 plan proposes to invest USD 275 billion by year 2020 in capacity enhancement, asset modernization and rolling stock acquisition.

The Summit had mainly focus on private sector participation, policy frameworks, best practices for achieving high growth in railways, R&D, environmental & safety issues, technology transfer and create an ideal platform for manufacturers and service providers to interact with domestic and international players apart from senior officials from the Ministry of Railways.

The Summit had also showcased some of the new initiatives of the Indian railways and explores possibilities of how best the industry could assist in achieving the desired target.

The Conference had plenary sessions covering:

a)     Rolling Stock: Future Perspectives

b)    Rail Infrastructure: Emerging Trends and Technology 

c)     Urban Transportation: PPP, Investment, Operations, Maintenance, Freight corridor and Logistics in Rail sector

The well attended conference attracted speakers of National and International repute. Some of the eminent speakers were from Electro Motive Diesel Inc., Bombardier Transportation, UGL Rail Limited, Alstom Transport, Siemens Limited, Quant Partners, Jindal Steel and Power Limited, Fedders Lloyd Corporation Limited, Larsen & Turbo Metro Rail and Siemens Limited.

Texmaco, ElectroMotive and Bombardier were the sponsors of the conference.