Railways wants to triple freight traffic to 3 bn tonne by 2030, have 50% share in goods movement, says Piyush Goyal

The Indian Railways has set a target to triple its freight traffic to 3 billion tonne by 2030, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday. He said the Railways was looking to come out with a “reciprocation” strategy on bidding for major projects. Under the strategy, companies from only those countries which allow Indian firms to bid for their development projects would be allowed to participate in similar projects in India, Goyal said. [caption id=“attachment_4279019” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. AFP[/caption] “As we are taking steps to become a $10 trillion economy, we want to increase the share of railways freight traffic to 3 billion tonne from the current 1.1 billion tonne,” the minister told reporters here. Goyal also said that the plan was to increase the railways’ share in the overall goods movement to 50 percent from the current share of around 35 percent. Senior officials said that railways has completed a record 476-km track renewal in the month of December. It expects to touch 3,500-km of track renewal in 2017-18, they said.