Indian Railways has come up with a new plan for firms to get an assured supply of rakes. According to the draft plan, customers have to buy rakes with their own investment and the railways will, in turn, supply them rakes depending on the units bought.
The step is in line with the railways? intention of increasing private participation in rail projects and meeting its goals of raising freight traffic. The move will also help firms that reported a shortage of rakes to have enough wagons at their disposal.
With such investments, the railways will also gain an additional fleet of general purpose wagons and customers investing in railway wagons will have more satisfaction in the supply of rakes, based on the number of rakes invested in. The railways will also gain better availability of rakes in order to meet the increasing demand for rakes as well and also develop long-term business relationships with investors,? says the Modified Wagon Investment Scheme draft.
According to the new plan, the railways will set a benchmark based on the average number of full rakes loaded by the investor in the last three financial years. However, a minimum of six rakes per wagon will be provided till the investor recovers his investment on the wagons. The rakes supplied will be used for transporting all commodities other than foodgrain and salt.
However, the scheme makes it mandatory that purchased rakes will be included in the general pool of the railways. ?This will limit the scope of the scheme,? a senior Coal India official said. Experts say the modified scheme does not promise to be much better than the original ?Own Your Wagon? scheme. ?The old scheme also had the provision of including the rakes in the general pool. In addition, it restricted the use of supplied wagons on a pre-fixed stretch. The two provisions were the main reasons for restricting firms in investing in the scheme,? a former financial commissioner of the railways told FE on the condition of anonymity.