The Hindu Business Line : Rlys expects funds to flow for freight corridor from early 2009

Funding talks: Mr K.C. Jena, Chairman, Railway Board, addressing a press conference with Ms Sudha Chobe, Financial Commissioner, Railways, in the Capital on Wednesday.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, April 2

Indian Railways expects to start receiving funds for its ambitious dedicated freight corridor project from early 2009.

“The Western corridor is expected to cost Rs 23,680 crore including escalation and interest during construction,” Mr K.C. Jena, said. This also includes the cost of electric locomotives as the Japanese agency linked the funding to this aspect.

For the Eastern corridor, the cost works out to about Rs 19,613 crore (up to Dankuni). “We are in talks with multilateral agencies for the funding of Eastern corridor,” Mr Jena said.

For the Western rail corridor, Japanese funding is expected after the pilot project to run double stack 20-foot units (TEU) containers under overhead electric wire is successful. JICA has linked its funding to the Western corridor being electrified. Thus, the Indian Railways, which had earlier decided to use diesel traction for Western corridor, is now willing to have electric traction on the Western corridor after a successful pilot test.

FREIGHT LOADING

Railways has registered a record freight loading of 794 million tonnes (mt) in the fiscal 2007-08, up nine per cent over 2006-07. “Provisional trends show that record loading of 794 mt has been achieved by the Railways. This exceeds the initial budgeted target of 785 mt and the revised estimate target of 790 mt,” Mr V.N. Mathur, Member-Traffic, Railways, said on Wednesday adding that the incremental loading at 65.59 mt is also the highest ever. This beats the previous record of 64.61 mt achieved in 2005-06.

FREIGHT TARIFF CHANGES UNLIKELY

On whether the Railways proposes to reduce freight charges during the year, Mr Jena indicated that it is unlikely pointing out that Railways have loadings and earnings target to meet. “Do you think there is any scope for reduction,” Mr Jena asked.

Coal still remains the backbone of railways loading and contributed 42.4 per cent of the total loading.

Loading of iron ore by all sectors including exports have shown a growth of approximately 19 per cent. Demand for iron ore loading is much higher, Mr Mathur said.

“In 2006-07, we were running 35-40 rakes a day for iron ore while in 2007-08, we ran 50 rakes a day,” he said adding that Railways require 25 per cent more wagons to meet the demand.

In 2008-09, Railways plans to procure 20,000 wagons. Each wagon costs around Rs 28 lakh on an average.

Steel loading from major steel plants recorded a growth of approximately 8.8 per cent. Terming the loading of finished steel and sponge iron from smaller plants as an indication of diversifying loading base railways, Mr Jena said, “This will roughly be equal to 19 per cent of the total steel loading.”