Railways to soon enter 'Select Billion Tonnes' club in freight

Indian Railways will soon enter the "Select Billion Tonne" club in freight movement that hitherto had just three countries -- the US, Russia and China.
Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal today said railways is expecting to reach the loading target of 1007 million tonnes (MT) freight in the current year and set the target of 1047 MT in the next fiscal 2013-14.
"Indian Railways will have to continue to increase transportation capacities in view of the increasing demands of the growing economy," he said here at a seminar.
He pointed out that apart from being the largest transporter of goods and passengers, railways have been playing a major role in national integration.

"Railways plays a big role in the more equitable development of regions by linking them to sources of supply of raw material and to the extended national markets for their produce. Thus Indian Railways has been playing an unparallelled role in creating opportunities and fostering development," the Minister added.
As a major transporter of bulk commodities like coal, iron ore, fertiliser, cement, food grains, iron and steel and raw materials to steel plans, railways is meeting the transport demands of the core sectors of economy as well as of farming sectors.

Emphasising the importance of supply chain, the Railway Minister said that there is a need to integrate various transportation players for achieving the optimum results.

He said that warehousing, trans-shipment terminals, inter-modal interface and last mile transportation from rail head have all to be brought together.
Seeking mobilisation of private investment, Bansal said it is necessary to attract more private sector investment and railways needs to address concerns of all private entrepreneurs with an open mind so as to attract private investment for infrastructure projects.