The Hindu Business Line : Rlys tracks economic buoyancy — Freight-loading target raised to 550 million tonnes

WITH the country's economy looking up, the Indian Railways has informally revised its freight loading target to an all-time high of 550 million tonnes for the financial year 2003-04.

Passenger operations are also rising against a fall registered in the previous year, making the Railways confident that it will end the year in much better financial health.

"We have responded adequately to customer demand and the current economic buoyancy has seen our freight loading surpassing the proportionate targets till the end of November. Even the number of passengers booked is up by 2.85 per cent," the Chairman of the Railway Board, Mr R.K. Singh, told Business Line.

As per the latest available data, the Railways loaded 358.27 mt of revenue-earning freight till November 30, which is nearly 24 mt higher than last year and 8.88 mt higher than the proportionate target of 349.39 mt.

"At the time of the (Railway) Budget, we were told that 540 million tonnes was an over-ambitious target. But now I am confident that we will exceed 550 million tonnes, which will be the highest ever volume of freight traffic handled by the Railways," Mr Singh said.

While petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) and fertilisers have shown a declining trend, both in terms of actual volume of traffic handled as also the earnings per unit, the shortfall has been more than made up by items such as iron ore, cement and other goods, he said.

But, even as the Railways carries more freight, it is earning lesser per unit.

The earnings per million tonne of freight are down by Rs 4.97 crore, while earnings in terms of net tonne km or income from a tonne of cargo moved over a unit distance, is also down 3.57 per cent. But Mr Singh says that it is not unduly worried.

"We have to cater to our social obligations and we cannot act as a purely commercial organisation. Prioritisation of traffic is an exercise that is continuously carried out in consultation with all the Ministries concerned and the Cabinet Secretariat. We are also facing competition from other modes of transport, especially the pipelines in POL movement. But we are responding by rationalising our tariff structure and also picking up shorter lead cargo," he said.

While it may be too early to judge if the Railways has regained its lost market-share from the roads sector, it has undertaken a freight rationalisation exercise in the last two years that is beginning to show results.

"We are rationalising our commodity classification structure. The Railways charges a variable rate for different commodities depending on various factors, but now the gap between the highest and lowest has narrowed substantially. The number of classes has been brought down to 27 from 52 just two years ago and our effort is to avoid one group of commodities subsidising another," Mr Singh said.

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