Railways to sign service-level pact for freight traffic

New Delhi: The Indian Railways is finalising a long-term 'service-level' agreement with industry to achieve the target of 800 million tonnes (MT) of freight traffic this fiscal.

"We will enter into service-level long-term agreement with industry. Proposals have already been received in this regard from various organisations including Grassim, Ultra-Tech, Sail etc. We will be finalising the agreement by this month end", a top Railway Ministry source told PTI today.

Explaining the details of the agreement, the source said that Railways would assure guaranteed supply of rakes to its customers and "if it failed to do so, penal consequences will follow. But if Railway meet the deadline, it will get bonus".

Buoyed by the spectacular performance of freight traffic loading of 728.41 MT during 2006-07 against the targeted 726 MT, the source said Railways has targeted 800 MT freight loading in 2007-08.

"We are targeting mission 200 million tonnes for cement and steel by 2011, mission 100 million tonnes for container (both public and private) service.... and for this we will be entering into long term service level agreement with industry", the source added.

Keeping in view the fast growing goods traffic, Railways had last year decided to allow private players to operate container services, for which 14 interested players have been selected.