The Railways has arrested the fall in freight loading of most commodities, other than coal, in the April-October period. But, there is still concern over the drop in coal traffic, as it accounts for almost half of Railways’ total freight loading. To get a new projection for this fiscal, Mohd Jamshed, Member Traffic of the Railways, will soon meet the Coal and Power Secretaries. In an interview with BusinessLine , Jamshed talks about how the Railways is now taking cargo away from coastal shipping by opening routes, and more. Excerpts:

What has been the freight traffic performance till now?

After meeting customers, we made 15 major policy reforms. Now, we have walked the extra mile and need customers to come to the Railways. Diesel prices have gone down. We have given concessions to cement, etc.

We have started getting very positive results from few sectors, such as iron ore (more than we were anticipating) and steel, and recoveries have been made on containers and foodgrains in the past two months.

We were on a down-slide for all other commodities (other than coal), which has been arrested. In April-October, loading for all other commodities has been four million tonnes more than over the same period last year.

For coal loading, we had got some projections from Coal India and the Coal Ministry.

That was supposed to go up from 750 million tonnes (mt) last year to 1,500 mt in five years. Out of 750 mt, the Railways carried 550 mt. With the same trend, we would carry 1,100 mt by 2020. That means, 100 mt of incremental coal loading every year. So, we provided for wagons, locomotives and huge investments in section capacity.

Coal India had a target of 598.6 mt of production. The target by October was to be 305.3 mt, but it has produced 271.9 mt.

Second, 84 rakes of imported coal had been coming in a day. This has gone down to 60 rakes a day, resulting in net shortfall of 24 rakes.

Overall, I could have moved 50 mt of coal, which I have not moved. We are looking to CIL again. In the past 10 days, the number of rakes loaded has gone up from 205 to 234, which is very positive.

What about the freight segment’s net tonne kilometre (ntkm), which reflect both loading and distance?

This has been impacted because powerhouses are not demanding coal transportation. There are 25 powerhouses that are now loading 28 rakes (sets of goods trains) a day, which is lower than that of last year. The Railways serves 144 powerhouses, of which, these 25 powerhouses are for long-distances. Against a capacity of 415,

I need more demand. These projections were given by the Coal Ministry last year.

Any change in freight rates in the offing?

We will liberalise the freight charges in empty flow direction. The General Managers will be permitted to decide the charges. For example, the empty flow movement was from one division to another division.

Now, we are going to permit about 30 per cent lower rates between two zones.

If somebody loads for a mid-point between two zones, they can get load cargo in empty direction at 30 per cent lower charges.

Some commodities have seen higher rail freight. Are these because of policy changes?

We have seen upswing in iron ore, steel, cement, foodgrains and fertilisers, because of policy changes.

Instead of the sea-cum-rail route for some cargo, we have opened all rail routes (ARR) for some routes.

Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu have been asking us to open up all rail routes. We had closed some routes as we did not have capacity.

So, we used to take coal from Talcher to Paradip Port and then ship it using coastal shipping for powerhouses in the South. Now, we have opened ARRs.

In fact, the Shipping Ministry is not very happy about this as it is making the route cheaper by ₹200/tonne of coal against coastal shipping.

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