Indian Railways has announced the opening up of all goods sheds for container traffic if found feasible besides allowing containerisation of all commodities barring coal and mineral ores.

Outlining several business initiatives in his budget speech , Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that IR would do a full-fledged market study on 40 plus commodities besides launching new delivery models such as roll-on, roll-off where flat car goods trains ferry trucks from place to another.

A time table for goods traffic will be done on a pilot basis besides allowing part load container trains during non-peak season to utilise idle capacity.

To woo customers back to IR, Prabhu has proposed to rationalise tariff structure, allowing multi-point loading, and signing of long-term contracts with pre-determined price escalation with key customer managers for big freight customers have been mooted.

Policy on private freight terminals/sidings is also being liberalised and in future approvals would be granted via an online portal.

IR also plans to levy differential tariffs based on congestion on routes besides exploring the feasibility of opening up of general purpose wagons for leasing and modernisation of 10 goods sheds.

A complete overhaul, including opening up the sector to container traffic and online booking of parcels, leasing out space in railway warehouses to third parties in lieu of modernisation and additional revenues, developing cold storage warehouses on empty railway land on PPP and operationalisation of transloc, has been announced.

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