• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Brickbats for freight hike from chambers

Our Bureau

CALCUTTA, Feb. 25

WELCOMING the Railway Budget as highly ``innovative'', with plenty of good features with regard to non-traditional sources of revenue generation and use of information technology, the chambers of commerce have uniformly criticised the proposed five per c ent across the board increase in freight on all commodities, and sought a re-look at this additional burden on industry.

Expecting a cut in freight, and a marginal increase in upper class fares, especially to bring back the high value, low volume traffic from the road sector, the chambers have expressed disappointment at the lack of initiative on the part of the Railway Mi nistry to reduce the cross-subsidisation of passenger fares through freight year-after-year.

Addressing newspersons here today, Mr. B.D. Bose, President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCI), hailed the move on commercial utilisation of surplus railway land (as recommended in the chamber's pre-Budget note) as a right step towards c orporatisation of Indian Railways.

Welcoming the special thrust given to improvement in passenger amenities, he said a significant feature of the exercise was the proposed tie-up with the Asian Development Bank for long-term development of the railway system. The ministry is negotiating a Rs.380-crore loan with ADB.

Acknowledging the new thrust to achieve an increase in the diminishing share of railways' freight traffic vis-a-vis road, the BCCI President was sceptical as to how far this could be achieved in the wake of a fresh hike in freight rates, especially parce l rates. The objective of bringing in the high value, low volume traffic from the road sector could not be achieved in a scenario of such across the board freight increases, he added.

According to Mr. K.K.Bangur, President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the stress on safety and security of passengers, technology upgradation in the system, introduction of new lines, investments on track renewal projects, signalling and teleco m facilities and use of Internet technologies for various activities of the railways were highly welcome steps.

He also welcomed the proposal to formulate a comprehensive multi-purpose freight policy, designed to gradually raise railways' share in movement of freight between 10 and 50 per cent by 2010. Steps such as warehousing facilities at terminals and devising of real time information on movement of freight would help business and industry to take a re-look at Railways as a means for freight movement, he pointed out.

Commending the Minister's efforts in the areas of mobilisation of internal resources, such as putting surplus railway land to commercial use, promotion of tourism ``on wheels'', etc, Mr. B.N. Kumar, President of the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BNCCI), praised the special emphasis on completion of the pending projects during 2000-2001.

Appreciating the efforts to spare passengers from a fresh fare hike, he, however, felt that mopping of Rs. 600 crores through increase in freight could have been avoided. The downgrading in the classification of items such as coal, iron & steel, cement, iron ore, limestone, dolomite and a few petroleum products might have an adverse impact on industry, he pointed out.

The BNCCI chief particularly lauded the efforts aimed at railway safety and passenger amenities. Setting up of a Railway Technology Cell at IIT-Kanpur and joint venture projects with State Governments were steps in the right direction, he pointed out.