In a significant departure from practice, railway minister Nitish Kumar has reduced freight charges for steel, cement and POL (petroleum, oil and lubricants), rationalised the complex freight classification system and yet managed to raise an additional Rs 450 crore from these modifications.
The freight rates of steel, cement and POL are set to fall between 1-2 per cent, while those of coal would rise by about 1 per cent and foodgrains by about 8 per cent. Together, these commodities make up for nearly 95 per cent of the goods carried by the Railways.
In an effort to remove the anomalies that had crept into the Railways