The Hindu Business Line : Rlys working out ways to increase freight volumes

FREIGHT being the mainstay of its revenues, the Railways is likely to step up its investments towards improving track capacity and increasing the wagon fleet in the forthcoming Budget. Another proposal under consideration is to increase the weight it currently allows to be carried in each wagon.

In fact, to study the possibility of increasing the weight allowed per axle, the Railways has asked the Lucknow-based Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) to carry out a feasibility study. As on date, Railways allows 20.32 tonnes per axle, though internationally there are countries which allow up to 30 tonnes per axle with similar track and wagon structure, point out some officials.

"Nowadays, the focus is to enlarge the throughput of wagons, given the excess demand for freight transportation. Increasing capacity through augmenting the track infrastructure and wagon acquisition would take its own time, thus one of the options being considered that could immediately help increase the capacity is by allowing a higher load per axle," said a Ministry official.

Additionally, Railways is studying if the present external dimensions of wagon could be extended, thus enhancing the total surface area and volume of goods that could be transported in wagons. Another move in the similar direction is using aluminium wagons that can carry an additional 4.2 tonnes of revenue-generating weight than the steel wagons. Steel wagons can carry 58.8 tonnes of revenue-generating weight.

To gauge the importance of freight for the Railways, it may be pointed out that earnings from freight have traditionally accounted for 66-67 per cent whereas those from passengers 34-33 per cent, if we were to consider the earnings from passenger and goods earnings as total earnings of railways.

On the track front, the Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), expects to remove bottlenecks in several freight routes that include Panvel-Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Palanpur-Gandhidham, Hospet-Bellary, Korrukupet-Ennore this fiscal. "We would be completing quite a few projects in the 2005-06 fiscal, all of which would enhance the freight transport capacity," said an RVNL official.

Moreover, the Railways has already announced its plans to build a high speed freight corridor along the Golden Quadrilateral over the next five years, as a part of its modernisation initiative.

As for the freight rates, "there will be some extent of tariff rationalisation," maintain highly placed Railway officials. The process has been initiated with the Ministry imposing haulage charges that are telescopic in nature for freight transport by Container Corporation of India (Concor). The Ministry has also started charging for transportation of empty wagons. In 2003-04, Concor had paid Rs 912 crore to Railways as haulage charges. The Railways can expect an increase in earnings through haulage charges too, given the new charges and increased volumes of container traffic.

Additionally, with the Ministry allowing more operators to run rail containerised transport services, total haulage charges mopped up by the Railways are likely to move up further.

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