The Hindu Business Line : Policy on containerised operations

Earlier, the Ministry was working out a policy internally for preparing the terms and conditions on which it would have opened up provision of containerised services on Railway tracks.

"The draft has been already worked out by the Ministry," said an official. "But there was a thought that before the policy is finalised, the Ministry could get a perspective from the prospective container operators. Thus, we will now appoint a consulting firm which will, in turn, consult with those likely to run containerised operations."

While getting a user's perspective appears to be useful, private operators who want to start containerised operations on Railway tracks will now have to wait a while.

The Ministry was hoping to finalise its container operations policy a month ago, said senior officials.

On when the policy would be finalised, the official said: "It is a function of how soon we appoint a consultant and get the report."

Incidentally, in the latter half of 2004, the Ministry had `pended' the operating licence given to Pipavav Rail Corporation Ltd (PRCL) after issuing a green signal to PRCL to start containerised operations.

As a result, PRCL, a 50:50 joint venture between the Railways and Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd (GPPL), has not been able to start operations. Many other firms that have evinced interest in running container operations are unable to start operations for want of a policy in place. In its policy paper on allowing private players to operate in the container operations sector, the Ministry was considering various conditions that included issuing route specific licences.

Moreover, the route to be specified for the operator was likely to be such: One end being the port near which the operator has invested in building a rail line, and the other end being various hinterland points. One of the conditions included permitting those players that have made significant investments in laying of Railway tracks.

Another condition proposed was that the company should either own an inland container depot (ICD) or should have a tie-up with an ICD operator.

On the cost side, the operators will probably to be asked to pay up a certain percentage of their revenues as licence fee.

Additionally, they would be charged a certain fee on a per km basis for every km they move on, which would be at the same level as that charged by Concor.

As for the final freight tariffs for the containerised traffic, as is the current practice for Concor, it would be left to the individual operator.

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Policy on containerised operations — Rly Ministry seeks user perspective