The Hindu Business Line : Rlys to discuss various freight tariff options with users

GEARING up to meet the challenge from road sector to its freight traffic operations, the Ministry of Railways will start meeting its major user industries that include cement, iron and steel and fertiliser starting this Monday.

It has drawn up various plans for freight traffic that include differential tariffs for lean and peak season, lower tariff packages for empty flow direction routes, among others.

"We plan to discuss these tariff plans with various users and finalise the new tariff plan for freight by June 14," said a highly placed source in the Ministry of Railways.

The Railways Minister has basically asked us to find ways to increase usage without having to increase tariffs, he added.

One of the moves being contemplated is to introduce differential freight prices for lean and peak season.

Thus for the lean period of April 1 to September 30, there would be different, cheaper tariffs and for peak period between October 1 to March 31, there would be relatively higher tariffs.

Moreover, in order to increase usage in empty flow directions, the Ministry plans to introduce rebates.

"Overall, the Railways run 550 good rakes that are loaded and 50 loaded rakes in the return direction on a daily basis. For open wagons, for every 100 loaded wagons that are used, four loaded wagons on return routes every day.

"For covered wagons, the return usage is relatively higher, with 40 wagons getting loaded on return routes out of every hundred wagons that move on a daily basis," he said.

"We now considering notification of certain routes and wagons usage as empty flow direction, where we don't find much demand and users booking for these routes would be charged 15-25 per cent lower tariffs during the busy period and 25-40 per cent lower tariffs during the lean period," said the official.

Additionally, if one user books a return trip for wagons, then on the return trip, the user would be offered a concession of 10-20 per cent.

As of now, there are no such arrangements.

Moreover, during the lean period, if the customer carries higher traffic than what was carried during the same period in the previous year, then the customer would be offered concession ranging from 10-24 per cent on the incremental traffic.

The Railways has been able to increase its wagon carrying capacity by 32 per cent over last year by decreasing its wagon turnaround time and increasing the loading capacity of wagons.

But with a core sector growth of just 3.6 per cent in April, it is left with surplus capacity, added the official.

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