Railways sees fall in scrap,plans e-auction

With a view to boosting the earnings from this source,now the Railway Ministry is working on a pilot project of e-auctioning its scrap spread across the country. Payment gateways and other modalities are being worked out to establish the system by year-end.

Almost everything that goes into running the Railways — tracks,wagons,coaches,sleepers,and even office materials — are sold to scrap-dealers at end of the year. Passenger coaches and wagons usually have a life span of three decades after normal wear and tear,but they can be scrapped,or “condemned”,even before that if need be. Junked railway tracks,made of solid iron,fetch a huge amount of money. All this is either auctioned or sold directly.

This year the inputs from the various zonal Railways on materials to scrap have been less,although the price the Railways is getting by selling the junk to scrap-dealers is around Rs 25,000 per million tonnes of junk — some Rs 4,000 more than last year.

“There is not as much scrap to sell this year compared to last year. We cannot junk stuff which is still in good shape for use,” said V K Garg,Executive Director,Railway Stores.

Thanks to less input,so far only Rs 1,420 crore — or just about 40 per cent of the estimated target — has been earned with less than six months to go for the next Railway Budget.

Officials,however,said the sale of scrap picks up by the end of the year so the end figures may not be off the mark. “We end up achieving 30 per cent of the overall target in the last three months of the financial year,” he said.

Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi has asked his officials to try and maximise earnings by generating income from unconventional sources as well as with newer ideas. The cash-strapped Railways has been seeking loan to the tune of Rs 2,100 crore from the Finance Ministry to tide over the shortfall.