Rail capacity growing... in India

Staff -- Purchasing, 4/6/2006

While rail capacity may be a concern in the U.S., the Indian rail industry is investing heavily in new capacity to meet growing demand for logistics services. Indian Railways, Asia's oldest rail network, said recently it plans to spend $5 billion to build 6,215 miles of dedicated freight lines by 2010. "This is a big step toward improving India's infrastructure," said Bidisha Ganguly, an economist at Brics Securities. "The plan will go a long way in improving freight traffic efficiency." India's Railways Minister Lalu Prasad said in a Bloomberg report that the estimate for carrying freight in the year ending March 31 is up to 668 million tons from 635 million tons it estimated in February last year. "Indian Railways are scaling historic highs in freight and passenger business,'' Prasad said. "We will not allow resource constraints to hamper expansion of rail network."