By Fakir Hassen, IANS
Johannesburg : A huge railway project in Mozambique undertaken by Indian government-owned RITES Ltd is expected to help meet demands for coal in India.
“Besides the best known coal reserves in the world being in Mozambique, there are also a large number of Indian companies who are showing interest in mining coal in (neighbouring) Zimbabwe because India is in dire need of coal,” RITES managing director V.K. Agarwal told IANS during a brief stopover on his way to Mozambique.
“That is why when we went Mozambique and got the concession and started the railway line. We have been building about a kilometre of rail line every day to facilitate transporting the coal from Zimbabwe via the Beira corridor to the port of Beira, which is also being deepened and widened.”
Agarwal said the Mozambique rail project, funded by the World Bank, would also have a massive impact on the development of central Mozambique as a whole when the system comes online in two or three years.
RITES has been active in several African countries for about 15 years now with the management of rail services in Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana and Angola.
“We have now acquired the rail concession in Mozambique and more recently in Tanzania as well. We also have our locomotives and coaches working in Angola and Zimbabwe.”
“We have also been in discussion with Spoornet in South Africa because we believe we can provide them with the training and manpower skills they require, since South Africa has a critical shortage of such manpower.”
Agarwal said the talks with Spoornet had been “very encouraging” as they would like to make use of the facilities offered by the government of India and RITES.
“Four or five delegations from Spoornet have already visited RITES and there is a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the two (railway operators).”
“This MoU is aimed at filling the gaps in the strengths of either side. India can learn from Spoornet how to manage the important element of freight that they run so well here. We have already sent a team from our side for training for two weeks at the managerial level,” he said.
“Spoornet will send people (to India) to learn from our strong base of technicians and drivers to alleviate their own shortage of these skills.”
Agarwal said the aim with all RITES projects in Africa was to transfer skills to locals.
“That has always been the intention with our system. We do not believe in transferring our personnel lock, stock and barrel to any country and after three or four years take them back home. We always train local people to develop their own capacity so that they can take over after some time,” he said.
“Following the road of subjugation by foreigners would be futile. We understand their aspirations. They are free countries that want to grow and develop and in that sense we share a common ideal which leads to a good relationship with them.”