Roll-on railway freight up 49%

The roll-on roll-off (RoRo) service offered by the Konkan Railway Corporation (KRC) has not only helped the corporation to better utilise its excess line capacity, but has also turned out to be economically beneficial for the truckers in the region.

The per km haulage of a tonne of cargo is 80 paise on road as compared to only 68 paise through the RoRo service.

The number of trucks transported through the RoRo service in 2002-03 was 14,131, up 49.17 per cent from the previous year.

During April-November this year, 7,053 trucks have used the RoRo service, earning the corporation Rs 4.02 crore, almost 16 per cent of its total freight earnings of Rs 25.18 crore for the same period.

Some of the advantages of the service, introduced in 1999, include savings in fuel and transit and turnaround time. The RoRo service is available on a 430 km stretch between Verna, an industrial hub of Goa, and Kolad, near Mumbai.

"One rake transports 60 trucks which would have required 10,200 litres of diesel if they had made the trip by road. A train engine uses only 2,500 litres of diesel for the same trip. Thus the saving on fuel is more than 75 per cent," a trucker, who uses the service, told Business Standard.

The RoRo service makes a round trip possible in 24-26 hours while the road route takes two days.

The loading and unloading time for the RoRo service is less than three hours while freight loading and unloading on wagons take a day each.