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Showing posts with label exports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exports. Show all posts

Friday, 17 June 2016

06:54

New Container Train flagged off between Hyderabad-Chennai Port to facilitate Exports & Imports

New Container Train flagged off between Hyderabad-Chennai Port to facilitate Exports & Imports

Secunderabad: Ravindra Gupta, General Manager, South Central Railway flagged off a new container train circuit between Hyderabad and Chennai Port at Container Terminal Siding, Thimmapur on 14th June, 2016. This train will run as a weekly train to facilitate the movement of export containers and import container traffic between Hyderabad and Chennai Port.

This train service would cater the needs of industry and market of Hyderabad and adjoining Districts like Mahbubnagar, Rangareddy, Medak, Warangal, Nalgonda and also Guntur. Industrial export commodities like bulk drug pharma, Engineering / Electronic goods, Automobile, Textile, processed Foods etc. On domestic front, sufficient cargo of commodities like Granite, Food Items, Raw Materials, and Chemicals is expected to generate in the circuit. Industrial export commodities such as bulk drugs and pharmaceuticals, engineering and electronic goods, automobile, textiles, processed food among other goods are expected to generate cargo for this service.

N. Madhusudana Rao, Chief Operations Manager, SCR, Aruna Singh, Divisional Railway Manager, Hyderabad Division and K.Satyanathan, Managing Director, Distribution Logistics Infrastructure Pvt Ltd. were also present on the occasion.

Source:RailNews
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Saturday, 14 May 2016

07:51

Railways to appoint Senior Officials as Key Customer Managers: Mohd Jamsheed, MT

Railways to appoint Senior Officials as Key Customer Managers: Mohd Jamsheed, MT

New Delhi: As part of the exercise undertaken by the Indian Railways to improve freight revenue, key customer managers will shortly be appointed to cater to large customers such as public sector units, ministries and individual firms, said a top Railway Board official.

The national carrier will be appointing nine Key Customer Managers including five executive directors and four directors to cater to such customers who provide 10-20 million tonnes of traffic each. Railway minister Suresh Prabhu had announced this plan in his budget speech earlier this year.

Railways generate three-fifths of its revenue from freight volumes and earned Rs.9,777 crore from transporting 100 million tonnes of freight in March. The prominent commodities it transports include coal, food grains, cement, iron ore and fertilizer.

“They will be the nodal officers to look at specific group of people of that commodity. There will be four-five major customers under each officer who will look into their demands, requests and reforms of policies to reduce the level of officers they had to go through earlier,” said Mohammad Jamshed, Member Traffic, Railway Board, on Wednesday.

This comes in the backdrop of the National Democratic Alliance government working towards improving ease of doing business. A case in point being the Indian Railways withdrawing the dual freight policy for transportation of mineral and pellets to boost iron ore exports. As the new policy comes into effect starting Tuesday, freight rates for transportation of iron ore for domestic consumption and exports will be charged equally.

“Dual pricing of iron ore was very complicated,” said Jamshed.

“In the last two years, there was no demand and iron ore exports have come down to just about 2 million tonnes in the last two years…this is 2 million out of 1,100 million tonnes.

It was not making sense for traders to ply additional amount that was being levied for export of iron ore,” he added.

The railways had made a slew of announcement to improve its balance sheet. Last month, it decided to withdraw 10% port congestion surcharge and has also decided to withdraw the 15% busy season charge levied on all commodities for two months starting 1 May. Earlier this year, the carrier also reduced the standard parcel size of cement from 1,900 tonnes to around 1,200 tonnes.

Prabhu has also promised to increase the average speed of freight trains to 50km per hour and introduce time-tabled freight trains on a pilot basis.

Experts believe that the right decisions are now being taken.. “There were issues such as not being able to load a full rake, so single rake has been given the opportunity so it can be sent to more than one destination in the end. So we will get some more traffic from the roads as well as multiple customers can be handled by the same rake,” said former Railway Board Chiarman, Mr.Arunendra Kumar.

Source:RailNews
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Friday, 4 September 2015

10:14

Indian Railway slashes Freight Rates to boost Iron Ore exports; levy Flat Distance-based Charge across all slabs

Indian Railway slashes Freight Rates to boost Iron Ore exports; levy Flat Distance-based Charge across all slabs

New Delhi: The Indian Railways has slashed the cost of transporting iron ore for exports for the first time since March 2012 by levying a flat distance-based charge across all slabs in response to “significant changes in the market”.

The new distance-based charge has been set at a uniform Rs 300 for all slabs and will be effective from September 8 for iron ore exported for production of iron and steel and cement, the Railway Board said in a circular. The revision comes as the domestic mining sector struggles to get back on its feet after a three-year lull amid a steep fall in commodity prices over the past few months. The move is part of the railways’ dynamic pricing policy , which reviews charges in step with market rates. Since March 2012, the distance-based charges (DBC) ranged from 10% to 125% of the base freight rate, plus Rs 1,125 for distances up to 700 km. The charge for distances above 700 km was Rs 1,125 earlier.

“There has been significant change in market of export of iron ore and hence the issue of DBC has been reviewed. Accordingly , the central government has accorded sanction for revising the distance-based charge leviable on booking of iron ore traffic meant for other than domestic consumption over all distance slabs,” the Director, Traffic Commercial (Rates) of the Railway Board said in the circular dated September 1, 2015.

Although the industry welcomed the revision, the decision may not have a significant impact on volumes due to the prevailing export duty.

“It is positive step and will benefit mines in the eastern region since freight rates have come down from Rs 2,950,” said R Kishore Kumar, CEO (Iron Ore Business) at Vedanta. “It will boost exports to Japan and South Korea. However, our fight still continues on account of export duty and our taxes, which are among the highest in the world.”

Between 2012 and 2015, India’s exports of iron ore plunged by over 80% to a few million tonnes from 90 million tonnes. In May this year, the export duty on low-grade ore with 58% iron content was cut to 10%, while the rate was maintained at 30% for higher grades. Prices of Goan grades of ore have crashed to $40 now from a peak of $140 in 2012, when the Supreme Court imposed a ban on illegal mining.

Reeling under subdued demand and low capacity utilisation, pellet manufacturers had sought a revision in distance-based charges while looking for ways find a market in exports.

“The initiative is aimed at reviving exports, but we do not expect any big impact due to a crash in global prices, the existing export duty and high logistics costs,” said ND Rao, chief of the Pellet Manufacturers’ Association of India, which represents interests of the industry with 90 MT of installed capacity . “The government needs to distinguish between a mined product like calibrated lump ore lumps and pellets, which is a manufactured product and attracts excise duty.”
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