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Railway Budget
Discount for loading cement in empty wagons
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New Delhi
Feb. 26
The Indian Railways is planning to consolidate on its increasing cement freight shipments, with the Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad, announcing discount of up to 40 per cent on incremental loading of cement bags in empty flow direction.
The Railways is hoping to transport 82.1 million tonnes (mt) of cement during 2007-08, up from an estimated 76.0 mt this financial year.
Earnings from cement freight transport in budgeted to be up 15 per cent at Rs 4,376.21 crore during 2007-08, as against Rs 3,810.54 crore this fiscal.
"We are hopeful that by 2011-12, traffic of Railways from cement and steel will increase to 200 mt each," the Minister said.
While the cement and steel industries are growing by 10 per cent each year, freight traffic of Railways in these industry segments is increasing by 20 per cent to 30 per cent, he said.
Mr Prasad expressed hope that the additional discount will attract cement companies to load in open wagons returning empty.
Incremental loading
The calculation of incremental loading will be done on the basis of the type of wagon, he informed the House.
According to cement industry players, a six per cent reduction on freight charges for minerals, including limestone, proposed in the budget would further help cement firms shore-up their bottomlines, besides the benefits likely to come in from the discount schemes announced on Monday.
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