New Delhi, Nov 17: The Railways will soon come out with a new freight policyto deal with the competition from the road sector, railway minister MamataBanerjee said on Wednesday. Speaking at the Economic Editor's Conference,Banerjee said that a team was busy formulating the policy and it would beannounced ``as soon as possible''. She said that a new policy was requiredto increase the Railway's share in the highly competitive freight market andfor higher revenue generation.The share of Railways in total transportation has declined to 40 per cent infreight and 20 per cent in passenger from 89 per cent and 70 per centrespectively in the fifties. Banerjee said that to get back the lost shareit was imperative to have enough resources for overall development and thefocus of her ministry would be to add to revenue generation. The ministerwill hold a meeting with PSUs on Thursday to persuade them to invest inrailway infrastructure. Investment could be in the form of sponsoring wagonswhere sponsors could advertise their company, building unmanned railwaycrossings where both the ministry and the PSUs could contribute resources,building modern railway stations etc.
The Railways was also trying to exploit other than traditional methods ofrevenue generation, Banerjee said. "We have already started adopting newmeasures. For example, earlier Railways used to charge only licence fee forgiving land to vendors. But now, we are also charging a percentage of thetotal profit earned by units setting shop on our land."
Banerjee said that her ministry's financial performance was not good and theadded burden of Rs 5,000 crore due to the fifth pay commission report wasgoing to make matters worse. Increase in cess on diesel oil and hike inprices of diesel oil and revision of electric traction tariff by some of theSEBs had also added to the total expenditure.
Other than requesting the Centre to allot more funds in the Budget, Banerjeesaid that her ministry was formulating an action plan aimed at cuttingexpenditure through austerity measures so that post-budgetary increasescould be absorbed to the maximum extent possible.
A task force headed by member traffic of the railway board has also been setup to initiate a dialogue with the industry as a fresh resource mobilisationeffort. The task force has representatives from the CII, FICCI and Assocham.Banerjee said that the body would submit its report within 20 days.
Despite the ministry's efforts to mobilise additional resources, Banerjeesaid that the additional support of the Planning Commission was necessary toput the ministry ``on it's feet''.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.