Railway Board to now have a special cell to attract more investment, increase FDI inflow

Order issued by railway ministry says Project Development Cell will, among other things, identify issues that need to be resolved to attract investments.

An Indian Railways goods train in New Delhi (representational image) | Photo: ANI

New Delhi: The Ministry of Railways has decided to create a special cell in the Railway Board to increase investments and inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI). 

An order issued by the railway ministry Tuesday said, “It has been decided to create a Project Development Cell (PDC) in the Board’s Office for identifying and facilitating the development of investible projects in India, to increase investments/Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows.”

The broad items of work to be handled by the PDC would be “to create projects with all approvals, land available for allocation and with the complete Detailed Project Reports (DPR) for adoption/investment by investors”. 

In addition, the PDC would “identify issues that need to be resolved in order to attract and finalise the investment and put forth these Empowered Group of Secretaries”.

The PDC would be headed by the principal executive director of the infrastructure department, and its members would be the executive directors from the departments of works, planning, electrification, signal, etc.

The formation of the PDC comes just weeks after the Railways announced the formation of business development units across all its zones to boost revenue and business. 

Cabinet nod to PDCs given in June

In June this year, the Union Cabinet had approved the formation of PDCs in all central ministries and departments to attract investment, and help in intergovernmental coordination on investment-related matters.

“Government is determined to put in place an investment-friendly ecosystem that strongly supports the domestic investor as well as FDI, and will boost the economy manifold,” a statement from the cabinet had said.

“DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) proposes strategic implementation of an integrated approach that will eventually bring about synergies between Ministries/Departments and among the central and state governments in our investment and related incentive policies,” the statement added.

The cabinet had also announced the formation of an Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) to which these PDCs will report. 

The EGoS will be headed by the cabinet secretary, and will have the CEO of NITI Aayog, the DPIIT secretary, commerce secretary, revenue secretary, and economic affairs secretary as its members, and secretaries of other departments as floating members.