India and Spain put high-speed rail collaboration on fast track

New Delhi/Madrid, Oct 28 (IANS) India and Spain on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the field of rail transport that is expected to boost collaboration in the planning, deployment, operation and maintenance of high-speed and conventional railways. The agreement was signed between the Ministry of Railways and Spain's Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility in Vadodara, within the framework of Spanish President Pedro Sanchez's India visit, in which he is accompanied by the country's Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Oscar Puente.

Madrid believes that the document, which also delves into the optimization of existing Railway infrastructure and promotes intermodality, confirms the growing good relations between both countries.

It will have an initial validity of five years and will automatically be renewable annually.

The areas of collaboration include planning, design, development, construction, start-up and operation of infrastructure, stations, railway facilities and equipment for long-distance networks (conventional, highspeed and high-speed), and the integration of services that circulate on them through interoperability, making traffic possible on different track gauges, optimising the benefits of investments in high-speed lines with improvements to existing ones.

Management and operation of rail transport and rail services and train maintenance, with special attention to improving safety, is also a key part of the MoU.