Daisy
Patna : Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu inaugurated ‘ roll on – roll off ‘( RORO) service for the heavy vehicles on Digha – Sonepur railway bridge through a remote system from New Delhi at a function held at Bihta freight terminal on Wednesday. Under the new system, railways would carry loaded and empty vehicles ( trucks ) through the bridge with an aim to taking load pressure off Mahatma Gandhi Setu. East Central Railway (ECR) GM A K Mittal was also present at the function.
ECR CPRO Arvind Rajak said this system, which was first introduced in the Konkan railways in 1999 , had proved successful so far yielding good revenue to the railways . While ECR has built freight terminal at Bihta on the southern side, freight terminal has also been built at Turki near Muzaffarpur on the northern end of the bridge, he said adding this new experiment is likely to benefit business men of the state.
Rajak said that 25 loaded trucks were carried in the open wagons of the goods train on the inaugural day on Wednesday. Railways has fixed Rs 4,000 per truck as freight tariff for carrying loaded trucks up to 15 tonne between Bihta and Turki terminals while it would charge Rs 2,650 for per empty truck. However , a sum of Rs 200 will be charged for per tonne extra. Besides, railways would charge Rs 5,000 per loaded truck up to 15 tonne between Bihta and Narayanpur and Rs 3,000 per empty truck, he said adding railways will realize Rs 250 per truck extra if they carry more than 15 tonne load .
Rajak expressed hope that the ‘ roll on-roll off’ service by railways will facilitate business community in carrying their consignments by trucks to their destination by railway services without facing traffic snarls on the Gandhi Setu . ECR has worked the details for easy loading of trucks on the specially designed freight wagons at Bihta and Turki terminals.