The Ministry of Railways on Wednesday rolled out a policy to build new goods shed facilities at and develop existing ones at stations using private funds, as part of a plan to boost terminal capacity to raise freight volumes and modal share in transport.

Private parties will be permitted to develop greenfield goods sheds for loading/unloading facilities for full rakes, lay additional line for handling freight traffic, including creating facilities for handling containers on a common user basis, said a Railway Ministry circular.

Private firms will also be permitted to repair/re-develop and maintain existing facilities at goods sheds.

Entities setting up goods sheds/siding will be entitled to a share in the terminal charges (TC) and terminal access charges (TAC), as the case may be, for all inward and outward traffic for five years.

The revenue share will be discovered through competitive bidding and the entity seeking the least share will be selected, the circular stated.

No priority or preference will be granted to the traffic of the private entity setting up the facilities over the traffic of other customers.

The facilities and assets created by the private entity should be handed over to the Railways after five years and the investor will have no claim over them.

Freight charges, demurrage and wharfage charges will be levied as per rules from all customers.

The private firm will be responsible for the maintenance of assets and facilities created during the agreement period.

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