Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, May 21, 2005 |
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Logistics
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Railways Demand for wagons to transport iron ore rising Santanu Sanyal
Kolkata , May 20 DESPITE jump in railway freight rate, there is no let-up in the demand for wagons for transportation of iron ore for exports as well as domestic consumers. Thus, South Eastern Railway (SER), a major transporter of iron ore, is saddled with pending indents for 30,000 rakes, mostly for movement of iron ore. An estimated 13,000 of these indents, or more than 40 per cent of the total, are under the premium registration scheme. Under the premium registration scheme, a customer is entitled to certain preference in rake allotment on payment of extra freight - about 25-27 per cent. However, as the situation stands now, SER will be hard put to meet the demand for rakes even under the premium registration scheme. "Our current rate of loading of iron ore is at the rate of 35 rakes a day on an average and at this rate we will take nearly a year to clear indents for 10,000 rakes," a spokesman of SER told Business Line. "Even if one-third of the indents placed are found to be bogus in due course, we will take hell of a lot of time to supply rakes for the remaining indents," the spokesman added. It might be noted that the classification of iron ore has been revised twice in past few months, first from 120 to 140 and further to 160, entailing a substantial jump in railway freight. The integrated steel plants of Steel Authority of India Ltd and Tata Steel, whose requirement of ore was earlier labelled as programmed traffic attracting lower railway freight, too will now be required to pay freight at the enhanced rates. A section of steel plants not covered under the programmed traffic had raised objection to granting lower freight to SAIL plants and Tata Steel, it is learnt. On an average, SER loads every day about 12 rakes of ore for various SAIL plants and another six or so for Tata Steel.
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