(a) whether the freight charges for road transportation are higher than railways in the country;
(b) if so, the details thereof and the approximate total freight being handled by road and railways transportation respectively;
(c) whether the Government proposes to increase the railways freight handling share; and
(d) if so, the targets fixed therefor and the time by which these are to be achieved?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
(SHRI RAJEN GOHAIN)
(a) to (d) A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
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STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (d) OF UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 661 BY SHRIMATI VEENA DEVI TO BE ANSWERED IN LOK SABHA ON 06.02.2019 REGARDING FREIGHT CHARGES
(a) & (b) Indian Railways’ freight tariffs are explicitly notified in the form of a firm structure, based on the classification of commodity transported and its lead. Since the tariff structure prevalent on other modes of transport, such as roadways, are generally not so, their comparison with the railway freight tariff structure is considered neither accurate nor meaningful.
(c) & (d) Indian Railways has taken number of steps to increase Railways share. Some of them are as under:
i. Liberalised Automatic Freight Rebate scheme for traffic loaded in empty flow direction, Long Term Tariff Contracts (LTTC) with key freight customers, Station to Station rates (STS), withdrawal of Dual freight policy for Iron Ore, Discount on loading of bagged consignment in open and flat wagons, Rationalisation of Coal Tariff, withdrawal of Port Congestion Charge, Rationalisation of Merry-Go-Round (MGR) system, reduction of minimum distance for charge from 125 km to 100 km, Distance increased for mini rake from 400 km to 600 km, Proliferation of Roll-on Roll-off (RORO) services, de-notification of 44 additional commodities for charging at FAK rates, withdrawal of congestion charge for stone traffic transported from Eastern Railway to Bangladesh via Darsana/ Benapole.
ii. The methodology for levying Terminal Access Charge (TAC) for handling container train in railway terminal has been liberalised from 1.5 times to one time in case of double operation (i.e. unloading followed by loading), reduces non-freight cost to customer.
iii. Indian Railways has taken an innovative business decision to transport empty containers and empty flat wagon for private container rakes at a discount of 25%. The move is likely to give a thrust to movement of empty container by rail towards ports to return as loaded, thus profiting Indian Railways with higher container share.
iv. Use of extensive computerization in freight operation to improve monitoring and to improve utilization of assets, deployment of higher capacity locomotives and higher capacity wagons, improvement in maintenance practices of wagons and locomotives resulting in increased availability of rolling stock for traffic, improvement in track and signaling to carry the higher volume of traffic, training staff and officers to adopt the new technology and management practices.
v. Two Dedicated Freight Corridors (Western & Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridors) have been taken up to create adequate capacity, which is essential requirement to cater the traffic demand and improve quality of service.
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