Indian Railways has opened the door for private companies to design commodity-specific freight wagons, the centrepiece of eight new reform measures unveiled on Tuesday as the government seeks to make rail freight more competitive and raise its share of India’s cargo movement.
The latest measures—numbered 10 to 17 under the government’s “52 reforms in 52 weeks” programme—span wagon design, container operations, construction contracting and project execution.
Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the reforms are intended to improve ease of doing business while helping Railways capture a larger share of freight traffic, which currently accounts for about 27% of the country’s total cargo movement.
. This program plans to roll out 35,000–40,000 wagons annually, building upon previous procurement orders with key manufacturers like Texmaco, Titagarh, and Jupiter Wagons. [1, 2, 3, 4]
IR has also decentralized wagon design frameworks, allowing private industries and oil companies to propose custom designs (like specialized tank wagons) and bypass previous restrictive approvals.
20 ft container for dry bulk cargo like food grains, fertilizers and other commodities developed by Kalyani. Payload of 32.56 MT of wheat.
These small innovations are the only way India can direct more traffic to railways from roads. And inturn reduce logistics cost from 13% of GDP to 8-9% over next few years.
