Railways decides against forceful acquisition of land for projects
16 Sep 2009
The ministry of railways has decided against forceful acquisition of land for railway projects. The railways will also comprehensively review its land acquisition policy to ensure that forceful acquisition of land, including agricultural land, is completely avoided.
The focus of this review is to facilitate transaction/ purchase/ acquisition of land directly from the landowner with complete transparency, a ministry release said today.
All existing land acquisition cases will be critically examined in the light of the above review within a period of one month, the release said.
The railways, meanwhile, reported a 6.84 per cent growth in its commodity-wise freight revenue during April-August 2009.
The Railways generated Rs22970.37 crore of revenue earnings commodity freight traffic during April-August 2009, against Rs21499.21 crore during the corresponding period last year - an increase of 6.84 per cent year-on-year.
Railways carried 357.99 million tonnes of freight during April-August 2009 as compared with 336 million tonnes carried during the corresponding period last year, registering an increase of 6.54 per cent. The net tonne kilometre (NTKM) went up from 2,17,292 million during April-August 2008 to 2,35,946 million during April-August 2009, showing an increase of 8.58 per cent, a ministry release said.
Out of the total earnings of Rs4,695.45 crore from freight traffic during August 2009, Rs1,706.48 crore came from transportation of 31.27 million tonnes of coal, followed by Rs785.21 crore from transporting 12.31 million tonnes of iron ore, Rs409.49 crore from transporting 7.36 million tonnes of cement, Rs320.02 crore from transporting 2.99 million tonnes of foodgrains, Rs295.71 crore from transporting 3.57 million tonnes of petroleum oil and lubricant (POL), Rs268.05 crore from transporting 2.55 million tonnes of pig iron and finished steel, Rs226.62 crore from transporting 3.47 million tonnes of fertilizers, Rs76.29 crore from transporting 1.03 million tonnes of raw material for steel plants (other than iron ore), Rs245.19 crore from transporting 3.01 million tonnes by container service and Rs362.39 crore from transporting 5.66 million tonnes of other goods.