The Ministry of Infrastructure and the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT) signed today (26) another five contracts for authorized railways in three states: Mato Grosso, Bahia and Goiás. Under this model, it is up to the private sector to build and explore the railway section, without the need for an auction or payment of grants to the Union.
The new contracts provide for the construction of 1,040.7 kilometers of railway lines in the following sections: Santa Rita do Trivelato to Sinop, in Mato Grosso; Primavera do Leste to Ribeirão Cascalheira, in Mato Grosso; São Desidério to Riachão das Neves, in Bahia; Correntina to Arrojolândia, in Bahia; and Corumbá from Goiás to Anápolis, in Goiás.
All projects were analyzed yesterday (25th) at an ANTT meeting. Another necessary step for the signing of the contracts was the edition of a regulatory decree of the legal framework for the railways, which only took place this Monday (24).
Authorization for the construction and private operation of railways was made possible by the Law 14,273/2021, sanctioned in December last year. However, the law was only regulated by ANTT resolution edited in early September.
According to the regulatory agency, in about a month of the resolution’s validity, 15 new authorizations were required and the documentation was complemented in more than 20 requests made during the validity of the Provisional Measure 1,065/2021published in August of last year and expired in the National Congress.
The government even signed 27 railway authorization contracts based on the provisional measure, totaling 9,923 kilometers. However, when the topic was approved by Congress, some rules were changed, which required new regulations by the Ministry of Infrastructure.
