Syllabus section: economy

 

Why in News?

The Ministry of Railways has approved a new iron-ore policy governing the allocation of rakes and transportation of iron-ore.

About:

• The provisions of the new policy will be updated in the rake allotment system module by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).

• Scrutiny of documentation by Railways has been removed.

• As per the new policy, higher priority will be given to the movement of iron-ore traffic for domestic manufacturing activity.

• Within the domestic movement of iron-ore traffic, priority preference will be given to steel, pig iron, sponge iron, pellet, or sinter plant owning customers having their own private sidings at both the loading as well as unloading ends.

• The policy has categorized the movement of iron ore based on the availability of railway infrastructure developed by customers. Also, the nature of movement will be in such a way to maximize iron-ore movement by rail.

• Under the fresh policy, old and new plants will be treated similarly as far as allotment and loading of rakes are concerned. The priority preferences for the customers will be self-generated by the system based on the customer profile fed in the system by the concerning zone.

Iron ore is the second most important stream of traffic of Railways and along with steel accounts for nearly 17 percent (53.81 million tonnes of steel and 153.35 million tonnes of iron ore) of the total 1210 million tonne freight loading of Indian Railways in 2019-2020.

Source: Buisness Standard