The Hindu Business Line : Rlys unlikely to revise freight on iron ore movement

The officials of the three zonal railways drew the Railway Board Chairman’s attention to a sharp drop in indents for iron ore loading, particularly for export.

Our Bureau

Kolkata, Sept. 25 The Railways has no immediate plans to revise the freight for iron ore transportation, either for exports or for domestic movement.

This was revealed at the end of a meeting the Chairman of the Railway Board had here with senior officials of three major iron ore handling zonal railways, namely, South Eastern Railway, East Coast Railway and South Western Railway.

The rail freight for iron transportation for exports comes under classification 200X, the highest classification in the railways’ freight schedule. For domestic movement, the classification is 170.

The Rail Board Chairman reviewed the overall freight transportation scenario in general and iron ore movement in particular. The officials of the three zonal railways drew his attention to a sharp drop in indents for iron ore loading, particularly for export. It was also felt that the throughput for domestic movement left much to be desired. The Rail Board Chairman, it is learnt, would meet the Chairman of the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) soon to explore the possibility of stepping up iron movement to SAIL plants.

The Rail Board’s traffic directorate, it was felt, should initiate a dialogue with sponge iron and pig iron producers for feedback on improving iron ore loading for them.

The suggestion that the Railways should ask the exporters to build up stocks of iron ore at the ports so that there was no problem in availability as and when export demand picked up, however, did not find favour on the ground that the port authorities might object to a measure that would lead to clogging of the port premises.

It was also felt that the iron ore throughput for exports could improve provided the mine-owners brought down their prices in line with the current declining trend globally. The mines-owners, it was revealed, were yet to “rationalise” their prices.

It was interesting to note that the indents for iron ore loading for exports in SER’s sidings have dropped sharply from several thousands to a few hundred; which means that loading for exports has not totally stopped.

It is presumably because exporters who have mines of their own can still make money on exports even in the present depressing international scenario. Also, there might be some long-term contracts which must be honoured at any cost.

The present scenario only confirms the disappearance of the middle men and those with fake indents.

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