The Hindu : Railways to open up container rail services

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 10, 2003

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Railways to open up container rail services

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI Oct. 9. The Railways have decided to allow organisations other than the Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) to undertake container train operations.

So far, the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and the Pipawa Rail Corporation Ltd (PRCL) have shown interest in operating container trains.

According to official sources, though the PRCL has been permitted, in principle, to operate container trains, a detailed proposal from the organisation was awaited.

The decision to open up container train services to private parties was intended to introduce an element of competition in the services besides meeting the challenges of the emerging globalisation of the Indian economy.

Railways have also taken several measures to improve user-friendly services and accordingly, commodity claims cells have been set up in the zonal railways to provide single window clearance in claims cases.

The machinery has also been toned up to implement the schemes for claim enquiry and tracing on end-to-end basis. Further, the zonal railways have been computerised to ensure expeditious settlement of claims.

Efforts are also on to make the system transparent through online linking to web to facilitate the claimant to monitor claims cases from his own desk, the sources said.

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