Date:01/08/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/08/01/stories/2005080100160600.htm

Back Concor wants more wheels on rakes

Mamuni Das

CONTAINER Corporation of India (Concor) is in talks with most of the major auto manufacturing companies as it readies to target the booming automobile market to transport vehicles using containers on rail. "We are in talks with most of the players, including Maruti, Tata Motors, Hyundai, among others, while finalising our automobile project," said a senior official.

The public sector unit plans to tie up with a player having expertise in transporting vehicles in the road sector to tie up the first- and last-mile connectivity issues at both ends of the rail link. "We plan to offer door-to-door solutions to automobile companies. We will soon finalise a partner with whom we will offer these services," said the Concor Managing Director, Mr Rakesh Mehrotra.

Another official pointed out that automobile manufacturers would also want "secure handling at both the ends of the rail links". "Manufacturers would have to be offered value-added services like intermediate location stockyards in order to make them use railways as the transportation mode," said the official.

"Transporting vehicles is a specialised service that needs to be done with utmost care. Since new vehicles are being transported for delivery, it has to be seen that they don't get damaged in any manner during transportation," pointed out the official.

Concor has already designed special wagons for transporting vehicles and has acquired the necessary clearance from the Lucknow-based Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO). Experts point out that unlike in several developed countries, where vehicles are primarily transported by the railways, Indian Railways must offer end-to-end solutions to be able to capture a larger share of the automobile transportation market.

In fact, during a recent brainstorming session, automobile manufacturers listed out requirements such as additional parking space in stations and consistent rake availability to commit additional traffic to Railways. Provision of parking space at the stations emerged as one of the important issues to be tackled.

"Of the total vehicles moving from Chennai to North, about 50 per cent are meant for Delhi and other 50 per cent are for areas like Punjab, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir. For the adjoining areas, we use road," said a senior official from Hyundai Motors.

There could be two ways in which the Railways could capture this traffic. "In order to use trains for the automobiles being transported to the adjoining areas, we would like to be provided some parking space for the transit period in Delhi, before the automobiles are moved by the trucks. Alternatively, the Railways could allow us to partially unload our wagons in Delhi and move the rest to Chandigarh," he said. To this, Railway officials suggested that the manufacturers could consider taking Railway land on lease.

Availability of rakes at short notice was another requirement of the manufacturers. "While trucks are available in plenty, predicting a full rake availability is not possible for us," pointed out officials from automobile companies, including Hero Honda, Tata Motors, Hyundai, Maruti and Bajaj Auto.