The Hindu Business Line : Non-bulk traffic share in revenues on the rise

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New Delhi Feb. 26 The ongoing economic boom has helped the Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad, to garner extra revenues from moving bulk freight. This is particularly visible in the case of cement and steel.

In 2003-04, the Railways earned Rs 2,185.18 crore from moving 49.25 million tonnes (mt) of cement. During the coming fiscal, these are budgeted at Rs 4,376.21 crore and 82.17 mt, respectively. Similarly, the total earnings from the steel sector — including pig iron, finished steel and iron ore for exports — are expected to gross Rs 5,392.96 crore during 2007-08, which is more than double the Rs 2,352.90 crore of 2003-04.

While the overall buoyancy has, no doubt, been a factor for higher revenues, Mr Prasad has also claimed that the Railways has succeeded in weaning away cement and steel traffic from the road sector through more market- and consumer-oriented policies. The share of the Railways in the transport of these two commodities, which had fallen from two-thirds to one-third since1991, has gone up by 5-7 per cent in the first nine months of the current fiscal, according to the Minister.

Mr Prasad said that the Railways plans to raise traffic from the cement and steel industry to 200 mt each by 2011-12. The other traffic sector that has gained from the economic boom is coal, with revenues going up by over 50 per cent between 2003-04 and 2007-08.

But the other significant trend is the increasing share of revenues from `other goods', which are basically non-bulk commodities. While non-bulk goods accounted for 12.6 per cent of the Railways' gross freight receipts in 2003-04, that share is now well over 17 per cent, showing the increased contribution from containerisation haulage charges.

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