To promote traffic of automobiles through the railways, its ministry is considering 15 automobile hubs to be set up on public-private partnership across the country.
The railways would provide land for constructing the hubs and the facilities would be set up by private sector players. These auto hubs would not only serve as vendor parks, but also have assembling units where components can be put together before cars are transported to sales centres.
In Phase-I, auto hubs would be set up at Santragachi, Shalimar, Siliguri, Ranchi, Guwahati, Patna and Hosur (Karnataka). Another eight hubs would eventually be put up in Phase-II of the project at Ernakulum, Vijayawada, Delhi cantonment, Chandigarh, Palakkad, Kharagpur, Challapalli and Kalamassery.
A senior official at the rail ministry said, “The establishment of these hubs will facilitate economic development of the areas where they are set up. The units will provide employment to the local people and also act as a revenue-generating source for railways.”
The Railways expect to earn around Rs 1,500 crore per annum from these automobile hubs, he added. At present less than two per cent of automobiles manufactured in the country are transported through the railways. The establishment of the auto hubs is intended to increase such traffic to 15 per cent by 2015-16.
Automobiles would be transported to and fro these hubs via four and eight-car wagons. The railways have also rolled out 10 rakes of two-tiered high-capacity wagons on a pilot basis to transport cars.
