Choosing the appropriate project management structure, project financing, land acquisition and contractual process for Indian railway mega-projects: a case study of the Dedicated Freight Corridor project

Main Article Content

Bodhibrata Nag
Jeetendra Singh
Ved Mani Tiwari

Abstract

A large number of railway mega-projects are planned or are under implementation for capacity augmentation, for serving the needs of trade, specific regions or industry sectors. Since transport capacity is one of the main levers of economic progress, it is essential that augmentation of transport capacity is not held up. It is therefore essential to choose the appropriate project management structure, project financing, land acquisition and contractual process to ensure design, construction and commissioning of projects without cost and time overruns. These choices have to be made keeping in view the context of the organisational technical capacity, financial capability, contractor capacity, and industry and trade growth pattern. This paper examines the various project management structures, methods of project financing, land acquisition and contractual processes along with their advantages and disadvantages. The paper takes the specific case of the Dedicated Freight Corridor project to examine the appropriateness of options.

Article Details

Section
Case studies
Author Biographies

Bodhibrata Nag, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

Bodhibrata Nag is an Associate Professor in the Operations Management Group of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.He received his PhD>(Fellow) in Operations Research and System Analysisfrom the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta after havingreceived his Bachelor of>Technology degree in Electrical Engineering from theIndian Institute of Technology Madras. He has received training in case method of teaching and case development at the Harvard Business School andpower projects design>at Electricite de France. He has more than twentyyears of industry experience in senior management positions in theIndian Railways and the>Central Electricity Authority. He has co-authored twobooks titled>"Optimal Design of Timetables for LargeRailways² and "Introduction to>Operations Research". He has been elected Fellowof the Institution of>Engineers (India), Senior Member of the Institutionof Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He was a visiting faculty atthe University of Michigan and was awarded the Fulbright-Nehru SeniorResearch Fellowship.>His research interests are application of analytictechniques for>planning, design and operations of energy andlogistics systems.

Jeetendra Singh, Ministry of Railways, Government of India

Director Planning (Special), Railway Board

Ved Mani Tiwari, Ministry of Railways, Government of India

Director Electrical Engineering (Development), Railway Board