Increasing commodity capacity and earning more revenues does not mean more expenditure, says Naresh Kumar.
The Indian Railways (IR) has a symbiotic relationship with the country’s industry and economy. The railway network plays a crucial role in the transport of coal, iron ore and raw materials for the manufacturing industry, fertilisers, cement and steel products and foodgrain, and in the movement to and from the major ports, as well as the transportation of people. Transport being a derived demand, any growth in the economy fuels the demand for transport.
Rail share: Even though traffic volumes on Indian Railways have gone up over the years, rail share, particularly in freight transport, has gone down steadily over the past few decades.
The primary reason of the rail share going down is the dependency of IR on nine bulk commodities and no thrust on providing cost effective solution for the large commodities specially the medium and light cargo, white goods, other FMCG commodities and auto cars.
Comparison with word railway system: The IR system is very inefficient compared to the other worlds railways.
China and India have got the same route kilometre, but freight loading is almost 260 per cent more. In terms of unit cost of transportation also IR is adversely placed as given in Figure 1.
Our unit cost of transportation is much higher compared to major freight loading railway systems.
Measures taken by IR: IR has taken certain measures during UPA-1 government in order to reduce the unit cost of transportation and increase the rail share including in the container business as given below:
- Increased axle loads ( 2006)
- Double stack trains ( 2006)
- Construction of DFCs
- PPP in port connectivity, 62 projects ( 2002)
- Private participation for container trains ( 2006): 16 players are operating
These measures have significant positive impact on IR volumes and financial health.
Major Issues restricting the IR growth:
i) Dependence on very few bulk commodities such as coal, iron ore, cement, steel, fertiliser, food grains,etc. The movement of these commodities are going to be limited due to factors such as;
a) Setting up of power plants at pit heads or near to the ports
b) Restriction of Iron ore for exports
c) Short leads of the cement plants
d) Production of food grains in all part of India
ii) Very restricted maximum moving dimensions (MMD): IR has got the broadest gauge in the world but the rolling stock allowed to run is most restrictive compared to major world railway system. Hence the volumes available over the wheels is very limited in order to use the capacity of the rolling stock weight wise for medium and light cargo, resulting in very high cost for light cargo compared to road .
iii) Inefficient rolling stock: The IR wagons are not efficient in terms of payload per wagons compared to wagons used in other railways systems.
iv) PPP initiatives are not given due importance, eg, private initiative of container train could not produce desired results due to change in IR policies.
v) Slow progress on creating additional infraÂstÂrÂÂuÂcture: The progress of various gauge conversion, doubling and new line projects have been very slow. Latest examÂple is the DFC project which is progressing with a snail speed.
Suggested measures with least cost implications:
i) Increase the scope of running double stack contaiÂner trains, reduce cost by 25 per cent: IR introduced first double stack train (DSC) in 2006 from Jaipur to Pipavav port. In 2011, DSC operation has been extended from Gurgaon to Port of Pipavav and Mundra. There are further scopes for adding more routes such as Punjab-Mundra/Pipavav.
ii) Double-stack container trains on electric routes: IR can utilise the height available under the OHE and run containers trains up to 4.7 m high. With this envelope double stack trains with lowheight containers can be run which will provideadditional 50 per cent volumes compared to single stacktrains and will allow the medium and light cargoto use rail transportation through containerisation with lesser cost compared to road.
Route between Delhi-Pune-Chennai are fit to run this kind of trains. Other routes can be got surveyed and such operation to logical O-D points can be commenced without major investment. This type of operation will reduce cost of transportation and increase the IR revenue per train at least by 10 per cent without any additional/minimal cost.
iii) High capacity wider container: The major problem with domestic containerisation is the avaiÂlability of volumes in the existing ISO type conÂtainers. We have suggested a wider container which can be loaded on wagons in the existing maximum moving dimensions (MMD). The volume of this container is increased by 30 per cent compared to ISO 20’ container. This type of container can be loaded on the existing wagons using existing equipment. The advantages of this container are as under:
I. Many white goods and FMCG be accommodated in the prescribed payload capacity, eg:
a. Plastic granular: Increases capacity by 50 per cent
b. Nestle products: Increase capacity by 30 per cent
c. Hindustan Lever products: Increase by 30 per cent
d. Motorcycle: Can load 30 Hero Honda Motor cycle thus increasing capacity by 25 per cent
e. Increased volumetric capacity is very useful for 22 t axle load BLCAM/BLCBM wagons and suits this container of 34 t gross load
II. Will help in increasing the Railway and container operators’ revenue.
iv) Diversion of LTL cargo on air: As per estimates more than 20 per cent of the road transport is for less than truck load cargo which means in absolute terms more than 800 MT as good as 80% of the total IR volumes. This type of movement involves multiple handling and consolidation even for road transportation using smaller trucks and larger trucks (for longer journey).
a) Concept: Designed a smaller container of 2T capacity which can be loaded on a TATA ACE type of vehicle. This container can go and collect the cargo deep inside the city limits and collect the less than truck cargo and bring it to nearest container rail terminal.
b) The smaller container can be loaded 12 number in the proposed wider container and can be transported by rail for longer journey.
v) Efficient wagon for auto cars: More than 95-97 per cent of the auto car movement is by road as IR cannot match the existing road rates using the existing wagons. In order to increase the volumes per train we have conceived a new concept which can help in reducing the cost of car transportation;
vi) Efficient wagon for RO-RO Increase the capacity per train by 100 per cent compared to existing system.
vii) Special wagon for transportation of wider steel plates: On IR and on road maximum steel plate width being transported is 2.8 m and 2.6 m respectively. Still mills are in process of rolling plates up to 4.8 m in width in order to reduce the welding requirement in big fabrication such as ships, railway wagons and coaches. We have conceptualised a new wagons which can transports up to 4.7 m wide plates on IR system without any cost to IR
viii) Very high volume containers: As IR doesn’t deal with piece meal traffic and light weight cargoes. In order to bring these cargos on rail we have allow very high volumes containers to run on IR with little bit infringement of existing MMDs.
With these suggestions IR can increase the commoÂdity basket significantly without any minimal capital expenditure and using private investment in containers and wagons.
The author is Ex-IRSME, Director, Techlog Support Services Pvt Ltd.
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