Nearly one-third of wagon capacity of South Eastern Railway (SER) has been lying idle daily due to poor demand for loading of iron ore, General Manager Ashish Goel said during an interaction with MCC Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kolkata.
Goel said, at present, SER has capacity of loading 75 iron ore wagons daily, but due to lack of demand in the steel and iron ore industry, barely 50 wagons could be loaded.
“25 wagons’ capacity is wasted every day because of lack of demand,” Goel said.
Under these circumstances, SER is trying hard to mitigate this excess capacity factor, he said.
In order to be commercially attractive for the medium and small manufacturer, SER has come out with a guaranteed wagon supply scheme in which, based on manufacturing capacity and excise duty returns, there will be guaranteed demand for loading of 0.5 million ton (mt) of cargo per annum.
Statistics provided by Railways shows that 85% of its total earning comes from freight of which iron ore contributes 51% followed by coal at 22% and steel at 12%.
Source:ISMW