Railway board chairman C L Kaw told Business Standard that the Board was forced to propose this measure to the cabinet following mounting dues from the power sector.
The cabinet approval of the scheme prompted a counter-move from the power sector. This led the cabinet to change its decision and the scheme could not be enforced on October 1.
Kaw admitted that the power sector has now liquidated most of the dues arising out of allotments of wagons by the Railways.
The Delhi Electricity Supply Undertaking (Desu) and the Badarpur thermal power station (BTMS) together accounted for Rs 900 crore out of a total of Rs 1,000 crore owed by the sector.
He said the three-month reprieve by the cabinet would enable the power sector to pay the freight before seeking allotment of wagons.
Kaw made it clear that the railways will not supply them wagons without pre-payments from January next.
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Earlier, addressing the thirty-fifth annual general meeting of the Indian Coal Merchants Association here yesterday, the railway board chief demolished the theory of shortage in loading of wagons. Against the pending demand of 27,000 wagons on broadgauge lines, the loading is done to the extent of 45,000 wagons a day.
On the meter gauge line, pending demands for wagons are only 8,000 against actual daily loading of 2,500 wagons.
The railway board has placed orders for 30,000 wagons in the current year.
In 1995-96, the railways got only 17,000 wagons against a demand of 24,000.
Kaw felt that the wagon-making companies might have trimmed their manufacturing facilities after idling for a long time in the recent past.
The manufacturers are now demanding certain free supply items from the railways which they discontinued asking for in the last year.
V K Arora, president of Indian Coal Merchants Association, complained that non-core sector industries accounted for a share of 15 per cent in receipt of coal wagons in 1985-86, 11 per cent in 1990-91 and 6.7 per cent in 1995-96.
He urged the rail board chief to arrest this trend.