The Union Government has allowed use of railway land for creation of siding, warehousing and such other facilities for establishing “the last-mile connectivity.” This will enable railways to permit “licensed” use of its land. For the industries, it will remove the logistics bottlenecks for movement of bulk commodities – including mined products as well as food grains – between the sourcing points and the final destinations.
This decision will allow the Ministry to provide railway land on licensing basis to its users who want to invest in building last mile rail links. All such proposals were stuck since March 2011 because of a Cabinet decision.
The Railways Board Chairman, Mr Vinay Mittal, in responding to a Business Line query said here on Friday that the Railways have recently got the Cabinet approval on the subject.
“We have got the cabinet approval for the last-mile connectivity and siding connectivity. We were not able to licence any land for the last-mile connectivity project since March 2011. That will also give a huge impetus to the freight traffic,” he said. Last-mile connectivity is what links the nearest railheads to the manufacturing units or mine pits.
“The Board had to get Cabinet approval because of the sensitive land acquisition issues,” Mr Mittal explained.
“Instructions have already been issued to all zonal railway authorities that they can now have the last-mile connectivity established. The traffic, which was held up for the last-mile connectivity project, should come back on track,” he added.
The Railways, earlier had pointed out that it was not responsible for the “non-railable” pithead coal pile-up and blamed it on the last-mile connectivity issue.
Change in PPP model
The railway would place a proposal before the Cabinet for approval on the public-private partnership model. The fresh proposal has amended certain key elements in the existing PPP model for developing railway infrastructures.
Mr Mittal said that the new proposal was felt to be necessary to make the model “investor-friendly” and give the intending private investors “more level-playing field”.
“We are working on the PPP model and we will be sending a note to the Cabinet very soon. For a PPP model to succeed what we need is a level playing field for the private entrepreneur. The investment will only come after that. Without compromising on the railways’ interests, we also have to look at the interest of the private entrepreneur as they are putting money into the project and it has to be attractive to them”.
Loading rate up in Jan
“This month Railway has loaded 1,800 wagons more than that of last year,” Mr Vinay Mittal, the Railway Board Chairman said on Friday adding last year’s freight loading rate was very high and it raised the base. “How February and March (part of the busy season) behaves will determine the operating ratio for the entire year.” Though the operational ratio target for the year (2011-12) is 92 per cent, the Board is unsure it will be able to achieve that.
Railways have asked for more gross budgetary support from the Government for
2012-13. “We have Rs 20,000 crore of gross budgetary support this year. We have almost 140 projects, including some safety-related ones at hand,” he said.
Mr AP Mishra, member engineering told Business Line that the Railways have made an urgent plea and it has been promised a “significant increase” in the budgetary support.
jayanta_mallick@thehindu.co.in
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/logistics/article2837406.ece
