SAIL and the Railways share a relationship spanning over five decades.

The Indian Railways is the backbone of the economy and fuels growth and development in various sectors of the country. On one hand, we are a proprietary supplier for the Railways while on the other we rely on it for providing logistical support for movement of inputs and steel products.

We welcome the Rail Budget 2014-15, which is growth-oriented, while aiming for financial sustainability through linking of freight to fuel prices. The Rail Budget has the highest ever Plan outlay of ₹65,445 crore in FY15, which augurs well for development of railway infrastructure. The thrust on close monitoring of dedicated freight corridor projects is likely to boost steel consumption as Railways is one of the biggest consumers of steel in the country.

During 2014-15, award of civil construction contracts for 1000 km is targeted in the Dedicated Freight corridors. The Diamond Quadrilateral project of high speed trains to connect all major metros will also boost consumption of steel.

For the steel and mining industry, critical coal connectivity lines, estimated to get 100 million tonne incremental coal traffic to the Railways, last mile connectivity planned for some ports and mines will facilitate competitiveness. With private investment envisaged through the right balance of FDI and Public Private Partnership, new projects will get a boost.

The thrust of the rail budget on new projects such as High Speed and Semi-high speed projects, development of wagon leasing business, upgradation of stations, and procurement of rolling stock, doubling and trebling of lines, gauge conversion will spur steel demand at a time when large capacities for steel are being installed by SAIL.

Besides this, the Railway Minister has mentioned that the Railways would be investing in track renewals, elimination of unmanned level crossings and construction of road under bridges and road over bridges. The Railways has estimated that it would need to invest over ₹40,000 crore towards this purpose and this would be beneficial for SAIL as we are investing in setting up of new state-of-the-art Universal Rail Mill (URM) of 1.2 mt capacity at Bhilai Steel Plant.

The thrust on augmenting infrastructure, facilitating port connectivity projects is a welcome move and would lead to economic development. The budget is progressive and industry friendly and has provided opportunities for industry through its resource expansion programme and setting up infrastructure through FDI and PPP mode.

The Railway Minister has also emphasised on project completion, which will spur the growth of businesses in India.

As a user of rail services we also welcome the Railways’ proposal to launch online demand registration and initiating the process of issuing electronic railway receipts.

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