Indian rail flush with profits, freight corridors construction to begin

Indian rail flush with profits, freight corridors construction to begin The Indian government on Monday released its 2007-2008 rail budget, with construction for dedicated freight corridors between major ports and cities expected to begin in the next year.
   The budget should make shippers sourcing in India cautiously optimistic, though analysts in the south Asian nation contend that freight volumes will climb faster than even the expanded rail corridors will be able to handle.
   Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said Monday that he expects construction to begin on the freight corridors soon. Prasad was buoyed by results from 2006 that showed India's state-run railroad had made a profit of roughly $2.2 billion in the last year, a result of high passenger and freight demand and low operational costs.
   Prasad told journalists in Delhi Monday that the money would be sunk into high-speed passenger services and double- and triple-stack container freight corridors.
   While the majority of cargo moving on India's rail network is bulk goods, export consumer goods rose 20 percent last year, and demand for rail services for those goods is expected to intensify.