Freight relies on tried and tested

Earnings from other goods projected to go down.

Despite her announcement in Parliament that she would be looking at increasing the share of newer sources for freight revenue, such as automobiles and fly ash, Mamata Banerjee has relied on traditional products for 2009-10. These include coal, iron ore, cement, foodgrains, petroleum products and steel.

Freight earnings from coal, the largest revenue earner for the railways, is budgeted to increase by 15 per cent from the revised estimate of Rs 20,738 crore in 2008-09 to Rs 23,964 crore in 2009-10. However, taking the slowdown in exports into consideration, the freight earnings from iron ore exports has been budgeted to fall from Rs 8,495 crore in 2008-09 (revised estimate) to Rs 7,896 crore for 2009-10.

Earnings from cement are expected to go up from Rs 4,776 crore in the revised estimates of 2008-09 to Rs 5,283 crore in 2009-10, a growth of 10.6 per cent. Similarly, freight earnings from fertiliser will go up from Rs 2,913 crore in 2008-09 to Rs 3,054 crore in 2009-10, an increase of only 4 per cent. Freight from petroleum products has gone up by 7 per cent, from Rs 3138 crore in 2008-09 to Rs 3,36 crore in 2009-10 in the budget projections.

The earnings from other goods, which Banerjee has been talking about, has been projected to go down from Rs 4,496 crore in 2008-09 to projected revenues of Rs 4,484 crore in 2009-10. And earnings from container services is projected to grow by over 7 per cent, from Rs 2,317.6 crore in 2008- 09 crore to Rs 2,482.45 crore projected in 2009-10.