India, the world’s second-most populous nation, estimates 960 billion rupees ($22 billion) will be spent on urban railways by March 2017, as expanding cities stoke demand for public transportation.
To raise part of that, the Indian government will form a fund that invests in city rail systems, Navin Kumar, a secretary in the Ministry of Urban Development, said at a New Delhi conference today. He didn’t provide further details.
Mumbai and the southern cities of Bangalore and Chennai have begun building rail networks to ease congestion and support rising populations. India’s economic growth may help boost the nation’s urban populations to 590 million in the next two decades from 340 million in 2008, McKinsey & Co. said in a report in April.
India is “a big opportunity” for trainmakers, said Rajeev Jyoti, who heads Bombardier Inc.’s transportation business in India. “The demand for mass-transit systems is significantly higher” than previously.
Montreal-based Bombardier opened a factory in India in 2008 after winning a contract to supply New Delhi’s subway operator. The factory builds 32 subway cars a month, Pierre D. St-Onge, the plant’s general manager, said last week.
New Delhi has a 180-kilometer-long urban rail network in operation. Part of the system runs underground.
India will need 35 rail-based transit systems in cities over the next two decades, according to McKinsey.
source: bloomberg
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