Railways to cut travel, cargo prices
NEW DELHI: The railways are set to announce cuts in both freight tariffs and passenger fares in Railway Budget 2008. The move is spurred by remarkable ...

growth in passenger traffic and freight earnings in the second quarter of the fiscal.

“Based on the exemplary performance, a downward price revision in the next fiscal is imminent,” a senior Rail Bhawan official said. The railways are expected to post an aggregate growth (freight and passenger) of 14% in revenue and 17% in terms of volume in the quarter ended September 30. The railways are expected to earn Rs 19,335 crore and Rs 8,415 crore in freight and passenger services respectively in the first half of the fiscal.

In recent months, there has been a slowdown in freight traffic. “It was because of inherent problems in coal, cement and iron & steel industries. The problems have been sorted out and freight traffic has been restored to its normal growth,” the official added.

“We have fixed a target of 785 million metric tonnes this fiscal, which would easily be crossed. All other targets would also be crossed with decent margins. The confidence is definitely not unfounded as the freight earning till now speak for themselves,” the official said.

In August alone, the railways have shown strong growth over the previous month in iron ore (40%), cement (11%), steel (18%), fertiliser (26%), containers (30%), coal (18%), passenger service (16%) and parcel (16%). “With this growth index, no wonder we may touch operating ratio of 80%,” he said.

“The railways are attracting more and more customers in the field of coal, cement and petroleum from the road sector. Now, the railways have become the first choice of transport for the manufacturing industry players. We hope to sign long-term service arrangements with a slew of cement and steel companies next month, which would again guarantee us continued profits,” the official said. The railways are close to inking such arrangements with Sail, Jindal, Tata Steel, Lafarge, JK Cement and RIL.

The railways are also working towards increasing the length of the trains by adding more wagons. The railways wish to attach four additional wagons to each train. This way, the railways expect a higher throughput.