Railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has urged the cement and steel industries to enter into long-term agreements with the Indian Railways (IR) for better railway-industry co-ordination in freight carriage.
Addressing the first meeting of the railway-industry co-ordination committee here on Thursday, the minister said the agreements should be for a period ranging from five to 30 years, so that those signing such accords would be supplied rakes on demand even during the busy season.
He requested the customers of the cement and steel industry to take advantage of the plan for development and modernisation of loading terminals and sidings, for which the IR was willing to bear 50 per cent of the expenditure and prepared to give five per cent freight discount under the Engine on Load scheme.
He said the IR hoped that its share in cement and steel transportation would increase to 200 million tonne by 2011-12.
With the help of its customers, the IR would be able to increase freight loading from 726 mt in 2006-07 to 1150 mt during the next five years.
The minister said that the turnaround that IR has witnessed was achieved by adopting policies according to the needs of the market and by playing the volume game. He informed the industry that the IR wanted to plan the development and modernisation of unloading terminals also.