The Hindu Business Line : Railways identifies four more freight corridors

Network plans
The proposed corridors are Delhi-Chennai, Howrah-Mumbai, Kharagpur-Vijayawada and Chennai-Goa.
Scales up cost of constructing western corridor to Rs 25,000-30,000 crore
New railway stations to contain ATMs and cybercafes

Kolkata , July 21

Indian Railways has identified four more dedicated freight corridors for implementation in the 12th Plan. They are Delhi-Chennai (from Vijaywada there will be diversions to different direction), Howrah-Mumbai, Kharagpur-Vijaywada and Chennai-Goa.

Giving this information here on Friday, Mr Ramesh Chandra, Member (Mechanical), Railway Board, said the cost of constructing the western corridor (Delhi-Mumbai, which will be actually between Tughlakabad and Jawaharlal Nehru port) and the eastern corridor (Delhi-Kolkata, which will actually be between Ludhiana and Haldia via Sonnagar and mineral-rich areas) might exceed the estimated cost of Rs 20,000 crore and could touch the level of Rs 25,000-30,000 crore.

Delivering the key-note address at a seminar on Technological Advancement & Long Term Perspective On Indian Railways organised by the West Bengal Chapter of the Institution of Engineers (India), Mr Chandra indicated that future Railway projects in the country would be executed by and large through private sector participation, either by way of public-private partnership or other models.

The areas identified for private sector participation, he said, would include upgradation of locomotives and EMUs, track renewal to support higher axle load, construction of new types of lighter wagons to reduce dead freight, construction of new railway bridges to withstand higher axle load, improved signalling and communication and anti-collision devices.

Private participation

The Rail Land Development Authority had been constituted to build commercial complexes with private participation and the work had started on eight such locations while work on 20 others would start shortly.

Call centres (integrated train inquiry system) had been operational at Patna and Bangalore and 25 others would be operational within two years. E-ticketing had been a success and new railway stations would contain ATMs and cybercafes, he added.

Earlier, Mr V.K. Raina, General Manager of South Eastern Railway, drew attention to several confusions marking the functioning of the Railways, despite the progress achieved in various spheres.

He particularly referred to confusion of gauge size in underground railway systems.

Also, nobody was responsible for safety of the metro rail as the legal position was not clear.

He deprecated the present practice in the railways of doing almost everything departmentally, right from conceptualising, designing, manufacturing, operation and even running catering services, something inconceivable in the railway systems in the other parts of the world.

As a result, the efficient running of trains, the main job of the railways, would often get low priority.

"The average speed of our super fast passenger trains in 55 km per hour and the rest of the world cannot believe that a super fast train can run at such a low speed," he observed.

ER freight target

The originating freight traffic target for 2006-07 for Eastern Railway, according to its General Manager, Mr S.S. Khurana, had been set at 52 million tonnes, up from a little more than 47 mt in 2005-06 and 75 per cent of it would be coal.

The relative increase in traffic throughput had been much higher than the infrastructural development, he said attributing it to better utilisation of assets, both men and materials.

There had been phenomenal progress in track renewal along with the introduction of improved rolling stock and signalling and communications systems, he added.

Mr Subhas Chakraborty, West Bengal Transport Minister, in his inaugural address, cautioned the Railways about the competition not only from the roadways, which was already there and formidable, but also from the airlines.

"The cheap fare offered by low-cost carriers is set to take away a large chunk of upper class railway passengers," he said.

For the past 150 years or so, the Railways played a key role in the socio-economic development of the country, particularly West Bengal, and it must continue with it, he observed.