World Bank to provide $245 mn loan to assist Indian Railways

The board of executive directors of the World Bank has approved a loan of $245 million to help India's efforts to update its logistics and rail freight infrastructure.

The Rail Logistics project would assist India in diverting more traffic from the road to the rail, improving the efficiency of both freight and passenger transportation while lowering annual GHG emissions by millions of tonnes.

The World Bank told the media that the project would facilitate more private sector investment in the railway industry.

With 1.2 billion tonnes of freight moved during the fiscal year (FY) that ended in March 2020, Indian Railways (IR) is the fourth-largest rail network in the world. However, just 17% of India's freight is transported by rail and 71% by road.

Volumes have been constrained, and shipping speeds and reliability have suffered due to IR capacity restrictions. Since trucks have been gaining market share throughout the years, IR has been losing market share; in 2017–18, its market share was 32%, down from 52% a decade earlier.

Road freight accounts for about 95% of the freight sector's emissions, making it the biggest source of GHG emissions. Approximately 12.3% of road accidents and 15.8% of all deaths involving road transport in 2018 were due to trucks.

With IR expecting to become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2030, rail can reduce 7.5 million tonnes (mt) of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases annually. Rail emits about one-fifth of the GHG emissions from trucks.

By enhancing rail connections with ports and inland gateways and constructing first- and last-mile connectivity to railroads, the Rail Logistics project would improve India's multimodal transport hubs and terminals.

The new Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor-3 (EFDC), also funded by the World Bank, has made it easier and quicker to transport completed goods and raw materials between northern and eastern India.

The initiative will put a lot of effort into harnessing commercial financing by working with the business sector and creating customer-centred strategies. The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) would be better equipped to offer multimodal logistics services as a result of the project's support for institutional capacity enhancement.

The project would assist ongoing community awareness campaigns on gender-based violence and place a special emphasis on ending it.

Additionally, it would carry out initiatives to systematically better women's entry and transition into the railways' sector, such as increasing the representation of women in technical job roles, developing safe work environments for both contracted women employees and unpaid women workers, and giving unpaid women workers on construction sites priority for childcare.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's (IBRD) $245 million loan has a 22-year term with a 7-year grace period.

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