There’s more to the ruckus over the recent move by the Railways to hike container train haulage rates than meets the eye. Haulage rates account for more than half the operating cost of private container train operators, which have now been upped 21-40 per cent, with an additional 10 per cent surcharge on traffic from ports.

Container train operators have petitioned the Ministry seeking relief. But if rates are rolled back, the Railways needs to put in place some mechanisms to deal with such tussles.. Private investors, who put in the risk capital, want a consistent, stable policy regime. The Railways needs to have a transparent mechanism, linked to, say, input costs or inflation, so that its users have a broad idea of what is in store. It could look at periodic revision of rates and take a cue from large logistics firms such as FedEx and DHL by coming out with revisions well in advance.

Though the Railways say the costs have increased for the containerised segment which has not seen a hike for the last 20 months, data provided by the operators’ association shows that the freight rates for containerised goods have been increased much more sharply compared to other categories of freight. Over the past decade, goods freight rates rose a cumulative 52 per cent, while the charges for container movement increased by 120 per cent for lightweight category and by 230-265 per cent in the heaviest segment. That said, the Railways could learn from its own approach: investment models were tweaked to allow users to book upside of financial returns and it even provides up to 80 per cent of traffic guarantees. Customer experience can either fetch more customers or drive away potential ones.

Mamuni Das Senior Assistant Editor

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