Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has said that major reforms are underway in the freight sector and with reduction of cargo charges announced in the rail budget for the first time; the benefits in a big way during the coming days will be seen. Prabhu, while pointing that due to non-running of time-tabled freight trains, most of the cargo does not come to railways in the country, said that to change this scenario we have already started a programme and two pairs of time-tabled container trains - ‘Cargo Express’ - have commenced.
Prabhu said that though two-thirds of earnings of Railways come from freight traffic, we did not focus on this and because we ignored it, the railways’ share in cargo has been on the decline and in the coming days it will be a matter of concern how the railways will support itself.
The Rail minister further said that for the first time in the history of rail budget, from this year we have initiated to bring down the cargo charges. The reforms going on in freight sector in the country are mind-boggling, and the reforms will benefit railways in the coming days. Minister added that efforts were also on to reduce expenditure on power. Indian Railways, which is a big consumer of electricity, is on energy saving mission. In order to minimize the consumption of power, Railways was tapping renewable energy sources, illuminating the stations through LED lighting, practice of prudent energy audit methods in a big way.
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