Indian Transport & Logistics

Minister for Railways unveil Indian Railways Freight and Passenger Business Action Plan 2017-18

Minister for Railways unveil Indian Railways Freight and Passenger Business Action Plan 2017-18
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Mar 03, 2017: Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu inaugurated Indian Railways Freight and Passenger Business Action Plan 2017-18 at National Rail Museum, New Delhi recently. Other initiatives include Policy of ‘Long Term Contracts’ with major customers; Trail run of Double Stack Dwarf Container Train under wire- a New Delivery Model and trail run of Ro-Ro (Roll on – Roll off) service across the National Capital Region (NCR) – A Pilot project of Indian Railways for ‘Green Transportation’ – to reduce road congestion and improve environment. The first pilot project on NCR from Garhi Harsaru to Murad Nagar was flagged off yesterday.

Speaking on the occasion, Prabhu said that over the years, Railways share in country’s total traffic has reduced substantially. Railways earns its two-third revenue from freight only and primarily from the transportation of eight commodities. In the wake of global slowdown, transportation sector is the biggest sufferer. It has affected railway’s freight earnings. However, despite these challenges, Indian Railways has done well to improve its freight loading. During the last two years, Ministry of Railways has been constantly changing its freight policies and rationalising them in consultation with all stakeholders with a view to attract more freight towards Railways. For these changes, Indian Railways has adopted market oriented approach to make traffic policies, stated a release.

These landmark reforms in freight policy are in line with the budget announcements. Prabhu called upon the stakeholders to respond to these changes and honor their commitments. He said that with the improvement in freight loading, everybody will be a winner, be it Railways, be it consumer or be it the whole ecosystem. He said that Railway is working in line with the Prime Minister’s broader development agenda. He said that the concept of Double Stack Dwarf Container train is also a good idea as it will save time and will be cost effective. Similarly, the concept of RO-RO services is also very useful from pollution point of view, public health point of view and for speedy transportation. He said that Ministry of Railways is addressing its transportation policy in a holistic manner. The Minister said that off late the Railway Ministry has taken various initiatives in the field of non-fare revenue and in saving fuel cost. We have fixed up a target of savings Rs 41,000 crore in next ten years on energy front. Railways have taken massive plan of expansion and capacity augmentation, Prabhu added.

In the Railway Budget for 2016-17, Minister of Railways has announced that an Action Plan will be developed and implemented to expand the freight basket through either Containerization or new delivery models. ‘Roll-on-Roll-off’ is one such New Delivery Model which can provide multimodal transport mix. Ro-Ro services were started on Konkan Railway and then proliferated to ECR and NFR successfully last year. The pilot project for Green Transportation across National Capital Region is the next such service being introduced on Indian Railways.

Subsequent to Railway Budget 2016-17, several initiatives were launched in passenger, freight and non-fare business segments over the last one year after several rounds of interaction with stakeholders. The Business Plan details 50 actionable initiatives covering the core business segments of Indian Railway's Passenger and Freight Sectors as well as new avenues in Parcel and Non-fare business, that Indian Railways shall be focused on, in 2017-18.

Better freight services and rationalised tariffs to expand the freight basket (more commodities like Bulk Cement, Steel Products etc. to be taken out of restricted list for Containerisation), long term contracts with Freight Customers, End-to-End solutions (through partnerships at 10 goods sheds), Rationalisation of weighment policy, Timetabled trains with premium on assured transit time (50 paths to be carved out in 2017-18) and procurement of specialized rolling stock for sectors like automobiles etc.

The initiatives enlisted in Business Plan 2017-18 carry specific targets and timelines. These will form the roadmap for the transformative journey of Indian Railway towards its vision of becoming an 'engine of growth' for the Indian Economy.

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