According to sources, Southern Railway had informal meetings with the Railway Board authorities recently, and is yet to receive any positive response.

Meanwhile, it is also planning to make a formal representation to the board in this regard within the next couple of weeks.

The scheme, it may be recalled, was announced by the Railway Board for the period from November 11, 2000 to March 31, 2001 for commodities including cement, clinker, iron and steel, sponge iron, sugar, limestone, gypsum, iron ore, barytes. It offers the user discount anywhere between 8 per cent and 12 per cent (varies according to the commodity and also on the percentage of incremental traffic) on the increased traffic over the benchmark.

The eligibility criteria for this VDS is that the user has to load 7 per cent more compared to the benchmark fixed. The benchmarked quantity is fixed as the entire quantum of traffic loaded during November to March 1999-2000. The scheme for the first time is being extended to new parties which did not offer any traffic to rail in the past. Sources said the benchmark is difficult to achieve for any industry especially for the cement industry.

This is because this year the growth rate in the industry is only about 5 per cent as against the previous year growth of 15 per cent.

They also feel that the volume of traffic moved by rail and also the acceptability levels for the scheme will come down unless the scheme is made more region and industry specific. So far, nine companies have opted for the scheme including Dalmia Cements, India Cements, Madras Cements.