The government has proposed an investment of Rs250,000 crore in next five years for expansion, modernisation and upgradation of railway infrastructure, said railway minister Lalau Yadav while delivering the Railway budget for 2008-09

He also said the railways would resort to public-private partnership modal to part finance the schemes as it would be difficult to finance such a large investment solely from Indian Railways' own resources.

"Therefore, we have started many public-private partnership (PPP) schemes for attracting an investment of Rs1,00,000 crore over the next five years," ha said. These will include projects for providing of world-class facilities at metro stations, setting up state of the art rolling stock production units and construction of multi-model logistics parks.

The minister also announced that the railways would invite global competitive bids for developing railway stations at New Delhi, Patna and Secunderabad, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai.

He said concessions would be awarded for developing these stations.

"We expect to attract an investment of nearly Rs15,000 crore on these stations. Through open competitive bidding, PPP partners would be selected for setting up diesel loco, electric loco and rail coach factory at an estimated cost of Rs4,000 crore," the minister said.

The concessions, committing an investment of about Rs25,000 crore, are likely to be awarded in 2008-09 for various PPP projects, he added.