Say railways do not have enough capacity and offer relatively poor service.
Even though Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee did not increase freight rates, truckers, who carry over 60 per cent of the total freight, do not see any impact on their business.
“We carry the maximum freight and will continue to do so and nothing is going to change for us even with the no raise in freight rates. Railways’ does not have enough capacity and provide bad service,” said Vineet Agarwal, executive director, Transport Corporation of India.
Agarwal added that he sees a freight rise happening in the roads sector, as the diesel prices are more likely to go up. “I see a freight increase coming because of the high diesel prices. Even then we do not see any competition from railways because the shift towards us has already happened,” he said.
In the rail Budget announced on Friday, Banerjee has projected railways’ earnings from goods carriage to grow 9.8 per cent in 2011-12 to Rs 68,620 crore.
Some truckers believe there could be some negligible impact but railways’ is not going to gain any major business out of this.
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“Railways’ take bulk bookings and avoid taking small bookings, which means it does not provide the flexibility we can and also has a bad service. Even if the no rise in freight has to impact, it will be in the range of around three per cent, which is negligible,” said B Channa Reddy, president, All India Confederation of Vehicle Owners’ Association.
In last year’s budget, Banerjee had announced schemes like providing door-to-door parcel services to attract freight from roads. But these schemes also could not work wonders for the railways.