RO-RO service comes to a halt

Bengaluru, 10 Feb 2021 [Fik/News Sources]: The first Roll-on Roll-Off (RORO) service of the South Western Railway Zone — the dream project of the late Suresh Angadi — that carried trucks on its open wagons, has come to a halt in the last five months. The reason — lack of financial viability of the service. The maiden trip from Nelamangala in Bengaluru Rural to Bale in Solapur district of Maharashtra was flagged off jointly on August 30, 2020, by Angadi and Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa.

However, it returned midway after completing just 13 km of the proposed 682 km. The run was repeated on September 1 and was successfully completed with 28 drivers on board the 26 trucks secured with steel chains onto the rakes. RO-RO’s return trip from Bale began on September 6 with 15 trucks on it and it reached Nelamangala the next day. However, the first round trip was to be its last too. The service was a challenge from the beginning as Konkan Railways was the only one in the country to operate such a service successfully.

The Bengaluru Division leased these rakes from them. Jitendra Infrastructure and Reality, the company tasked with aggregating trucks for every trip, had an onerous task before the launch as it had to build ramps and roads in front of the originating and terminating stations to facilitate the passage of trucks to the trains. Asked about the reasons for this venture being grounded, Yogendra Sharma, Railway Consultant, who prepared the detailed project report for RORO, told TNIE, “The Railways failed to recognise RO-RO as a special kind of commodity service.

The rates fixed by the Railway Board were similar to that it charged for commodities like coal and this ended up being costly for transporters as compared to transportation by road. Companies were not coming forward to avail this service by paying more.” “The freight rates for rail were fixed at Rs 1,350 per tonne. This worked out to Rs 2 per tonne per km. The road rates came to Rs 1.28 per tonne per km. Konkan Railway only charges Rs 1.10 per km.

I had clearly recommended that the rates had to be competitive with road charges to make it a success,” he added. Another flaw is that Railways charges on a full-truck basis which means that a customer with just 17 or 18 tonnes in a truck ends up paying for 30 tonnes, the expert added. Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Bengaluru Division, N R Krishna Reddy said, “The RO-RO service has been temporarily put on hold due to financial issues. We have requested the Railway Board to modify the prices so that it proves viable for all concerned. The issue is being regularly discussed and even last week we spoke about it. We will work out a solution soon to restart the service.”