Railways ends monopoly of container services

However, a rider, which would still allow the railways considerable control over the container business was that the applicant will have to provide bogies and procure his own rolling stock required for the movement of container trains. The railways would provide only the engines and drivers, Laloo said.

Sources said that while it was a major step forward, the railways had retained the control to a large extent.

There were only few wagon builders in the country, and all catering to railways. Moreover, railways were the only ones manufacturing wheels, axles and couplers for the wagons.

‘‘It would be easy for them to control the supply of bogies and rolling stock to private players. Perhaps, it is not easy for the railways to let go of the control completely. After all, they have had the monopoly in the container transport segment,’’ disclosed an official.

The minister said that containerised import-export traffic in India was growing at a rate of 15-to-20 per cent per annum and over the next five years it was expected to increase from the current 55 million tonnes to 110 million tonnes.

The railways had one-third share in the local domestic traffic of about 2,000 million tonnes.

Laloo said that an applicant should either have a rail-linked Inland Container Depot (ICD) or, within a period of six months of making his application, give an assurance that he will construct his own rail-linked ICD (in three years), or will arrange to furnish a lease agreement with an existing rail-linked ICD owner.

Accordingly, he said that the rail routes connected with the ports had been grouped together in four categories, with the exception of Delhi-Mumbai route. The applicants for Delhi-Mumbai route — after paying a registration fee of Rs 50 crore — will be permitted to operate Exim container trains on the other three categories also and domestic traffic all over India.

Applicants for other routes will have to pay a registration fee of Rs 10 crore and will also be allowed to ply domestic container trains all over India except Delhi-Mumbai route, the railway minister said.

The permission to operate container trains will be valid for a period of 20 years, extendible by another 10 years subject to satisfactory working by the applicant.

The process of registration and the policy of container train movement will be uniformly applicable to all applicants including Concor, ‘‘giving a level-playing field without any discrimination.’’ The principle of ‘‘First-come-first-served’’ will be followed in running of container trains, he added.

In the first quarter of 2006-07, the Minister said that the railways will make all possible efforts to introduce double stack container trains to reduce the unit cost of operations and enable container traffic to be moved at more competitive rates.

About two dozen global and domestic companies had shown interest in container business, according to railway sources. They included firms like P&O Ports, Maersk, NOL/APL, the Adani Group, SAIL, Tisco, Lafarge, Reliance and the AV Birla Group.