Govt announces moderate hike in freight rates
The government on Tuesday announced a moderate hike in freight rates for selected commodities like grains and pulses, urea, groundnut oil while marginally cutting transportation cost for steel, cement, diesel and kerosene as part of freight rationalisation that would help Railways earn an additional Rs 4.50 billion during 2002-03.
Though no across-the-board increase in freight rate was proposed by Railway Minister Nitish Kumar in his budget for 2002-03, tariff was hiked by as much as 11.84 per cent for freighting groundnut oil at 700 kms followed by a 7.89 per cent increase for grains and pulses.
Justifying the hike in rates for selected commodities, Kumar said "over the years certain anomalies had crept up in the freight structure due to ad hoc changes in the freight rates and rationalisation was being felt for quite some time."
As part of rationalisation efforts, Nitish Kumar cut down freight rates for five of the 12 commodities taken up for revision including iron and steel, cement and pig iron,
according to the budget papers.
Freight for grains and pulses has been proposed to be hiked to Rs 37.21 per quintal for up to the distance of 700 kms from the existing level of Rs 34.49, while for coal the rate has been increased marginally by 0.83 per cent to Rs 53.74 from Rs 53.30 per quintal.
In case of urea, the freight rates have been increased to Rs 37.21 per quintal for 700 kms from existing of 35.21.
The rationalisation of freight rates also witnessed a hike of 123 per cent in salt for transporting it between Gandhidham and Jhansi to Rs 631.89 per tonne from Rs 283.30.
YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:
The Rail Budget 2002-03
The Rediff Budget Special
The Economic Survey 2001-02
Run-Up To The Budget
Money