Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL), a CPSE under the Ministry of Railways,was incorporated in 2003 to raise non-budgetary resources for implementation of rail capacity augmentation projects and their implementation on a fast-track basis. It is headed by Pradeep Gaur, Chairman & Managing Director, who is assisted by three functional directors and a CFO. RVNL has completed 8879.65 km of project length covering 360.01 km of new lines, 2932.35km of doubling, 1783.22 km of gauge conversion, 3762.07 km of railway electrification, 42 km of Metropolitan Transport Project (MTP), seven railway workshops, one cable-stayed bridge at Bardhhaman and four other specific works. Gaur shares more....

The primary activity of RVNL is commissioning of rail infrastructure. Commissioning is directly related to release of funds by the Ministry of Railways. The problems faced owing to funds for commissioning of rail infrastructure were closely followed up with the Ministry of Railways/Ministry of Finance/IRFC and funds were arranged. In FY2018-19, the commissioning of new lines/gauge conversion/doubling (NL/GC/DL) increased by 61 per cent and railway electrification rose by 85 per cent.

Our approach was based on the synergy of various verticals and employee satisfaction. All issues pertaining to project delivery, general progress of the company and employee satisfaction were closely looked into and timely action was taken to resolve them.

RVNL is executing some projects on a cost-sharing basis between the Ministry of Railways and respective state governments. Owing to a precarious financial position, the administrations at state level were not able to provide their share of funds. Consequently, RVNL slowed down work on these projects to reduce the liability of the company. 

In FY 2019-20, we are working towards a 35 per cent growth in turnover and a 50 per cent increase in commissioning of projects (NL/GC/DL) and railway electrification. At present, around 15 days are taken by the Ministry to reimburse all project expenditure incurred by our company. A joint procedure order is currently under modification to bring this time period down to three days. RVNL has already commissioned the Obulavaripalli-Krishnapatnam (125 km) new line, which is built on the PPP model. Another PPP project, the Haridaspur-Paradeep (82 km) new line, is being targeted for commissioning in FY 2019-20.