Umesh Chaudhary, Vice Chairman, Titagarh Wagons welcomes the clear roadmap and direction given in Railway Budget and also the timeframe to achieve all the objectives. He is appreciative of the fact that the minister stayed away from making it a populist Budget and instead set up targets like reaching 1.5 billion tonne of freight loading from 1 billion tonne.According to him increase in passenger fares was not such an important component of the Budget but the fact that he has concentrated on revenue enhancement is key.Moreover, the minister seems to have set deadlines for himself, is also noteworthy, says Chaudhary.
Below is the transcript of Umesh Chowdhary’s interview with Reema Tendulkar and Latha Venkatesh on CNBC-TV18.
Reema: What have you made of the Railway Budget and the three key most important things that are transformational in this Budget?
A: It is a treat to have seen this Budget today because even before the Budget, when we were interacting, I was suggesting that there be a roadmap for the Railways, a clear direction and a timeframe for achieving that roadmap. That is exactly what the minister has done rather than saying that this train will be started from here to there and this train will be stopped here and there and stuff like that.
He stayed way from all those populist clapping oriented announcements and made it a very business focused or a very business like document wherein he has first set up what his targets are for example the big ticket targets like reaching 1.5 billion tonne of freight loading from 1 billion tonne. Then making the overnight journey possible for passengers and also gave a roadmap in the sense of how he is going to achieve it by revamping the people, the finances and not depending solely on the gross budgetary support.
Moreover, encouraging the public–private partnership (PPP) and some of these things like setting up a time line for himself - of three months to streamline or debottleneck the PPP announcements that were made like the Special Freight Train Operators Scheme is a wonderful thing. We have never seen a minster actually set up deadlines for himself.
Again, the logistic corporation of India is going to be a transformational thing. One of the biggest hurdles in private sector growth of freight movement have been acquisition of land to create enough terminals and if Railway land which is invaluable asset can be put to productive use to increase the revenue of the railways, there is a substantial opportunity that the railways have by doing that.
Somebody was just mentioning that why would somebody appreciate a Budget like this which is not populist, there is no fare increase but the fare increase was not important; that would have just ensured that the entire efforts of the minister would have got derailed because of political agitations and it would not have resulted in large sums of money coming to the Railways.
I would rather say that he has concentrated on revenue increase, on taking a quantum leap and therefore I feel it is a very welcome Budget.
Latha: Are you just expecting that there will be more orders for you and for everyone who services Railways?
A: Absolutely, If the planned expenditure has gone up by such a huge amount and if they are talking about increasing their revenue to fund their expansion by their own generation, obviously they are not going to generate too much of revenue by the passenger traffic, it is going to be primarily by freight; that is the money making business for the Railways and therefore they would require more wagons. I do believe that I heard the minister in the end of his speech mention that he would be bringing in the independent regulator to streamline the PPP.
To your question about the logistic corporation, I believe that logistic corporation in itself will generate so much of revenue for the railways. I don’t think that that would be a revenue generator like a CONCOR would be but what it would do is that it will be a great revenue generation enabler for the Railways. Maybe some of the larger players like Gateway, like Sachin have their own Inland Container Depot (ICDs) and their own terminals but there are a number of others who are actually not being able to pick up their business on account of non availability of these terminals and those operators would really become active and therefore start contributing to the Railways overall revenue.
I have always mentioned that Railway should look at itself as a manufacturer of capacity and look at the operators as their wholesalers and retailers. As long as that equation remains and it remains clear and people move towards that, there is a lot of revenue that can get generated from the private operators towards the Railways and therefore means more business to people like us.
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