Centre to set up a Railway Corporation to build rail connectivity to 12 major ports

15 Dec 2014 Evaluate

To improve connectivity between ports, the Centre plans to set up a Railway Corporation exclusively to build rail connectivity to 12 major ports. According to the proposal floated by the cabinet, every port is required to have some equity in the company.

Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister, Nitin Gadkari emphasized that the government at this juncture wants to allocate highest priority to shipping sector and has already taken the decision to increase the capacity of its ports.  India has 12 major ports- Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) which handle approximately 61 percent of the country's total cargo traffic.

The Railway Corporation, once set up, will implement all planned rail links to these 12 ports. Its connectivity with ports, would ensure goods traffic by railway.

The minister further highlighted the importance of shipping sector and inland waterways and unveiled that new bill, which would give power to Shipping Ministry to convert any river into waterway was ready. He pointed that waterways would be a much cheaper mode of transport, barely costing 50 paise for a km as against Re 1 cost by railway and Rs 1.5 through highways.

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