Independent monitor for freight corridor mooted

Even as RITES (Rail India Traffic Economic Services) carries out a survey for the first phase of the corridor — Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata — the Planning Commission, backed by the Prime Minister’s Office, is pushing for the authority to decide on traffic-sharing.

‘‘The traffic sharing needs to be decided not just between the Railway and highways, but also between the existing GQ of the railways and the proposed corridor. The proposed freight authority will decide on the origin-destinations of various products to be carried,’’ sources said. They said the world over, there were arrangements assigned to various sectors like roads, railways and waterways to coordinate freight movement.

The government favours coordinated sharing of freight traffic between road and rail. ‘‘Healthy competition is good but there is no point in letting one sector suffer losses on account of the other one. After all, the government has spent a lot of money even on improvement of roads and highways,’’ an official said.

The railway has to be assigned some freight traffic since that is its main source of money. ‘‘The railway staff would still have to be paid after the dedicated freight corridor comes up. An arrangement would be worked out under which heavier traffic — like the one carried by Concor — could be shifted to the new corridor, with the capacity of carrying higher axle load, and the other could continue on the old one,’’ the official said.

On the proposed independent authority, sources said the government was encouraging a debate on the issue involving the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited among other groups.

Chairman Singh to head freight body?

Railway Board Chairman R K Singh appears to be the only one qualified to head the proposed freight authority under the criteria that the railways have worked out.

As per the qualifications, the head — who would hold the rank of ex-officio Cabinet Secretary — should be from the transport sector and ought to have worked for two years in the rank and position of Principal Secretary. ‘‘Only the present CRB qualifies for the job, unless one also considers a former CRB V.K. Aggarwal, who got to spend two years on the job, thanks to the retirement age (being) increased from 58 to 60 at that time,’’ sources said.