Jessop hopes to make the best of rail budget

26 February: Mr P K Ruia, Chairman of Jessop & Co Ltd, finds the Rail Budget 2005-06 to be healthy, productive and balanced. He said: We must congratulate the Indian Rail for achieving a commendable growth in freight. With a further addition of 43 million tonne in freight target, railways plan to carry 600 million tonnes of goods in the next fiscal. Given that there has not been any across-the-board hike in freight charges and that the railway minister has promised to make goods tariff more simple, rational and transparent, the target seems to be quite realistic. This will augur well for the wagon industry in more than one ways. Amendment in the own-your-own-wagon scheme will now provide the users committed rake depending upon the turn-around time and the number of wagons they own. This is expected to generate a lot of demand from the private sector. Railways itself will also raise its wagon procurement. Jessop, as a major supplier of rolling stocks to Indian Railways, hopes to make the best of this welcome shift to a suppliers’ market paradigm in case of wagons.