The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council’s decision to roll back the increase in tax rate for government works contracts comes as a relief for the Indian Railways which had received representations from contractors on increased tax liability on various ongoing projects.

“The GST Council’s decision to cut back GST on contract works to 12% has come as a big relief to us as there was huge uncertainty,” said a senior Railway Ministry official.

“The contractors were demanding more money for contracts awarded before July 1 due to increased tax liability but the Railways had refused to pay for the higher tax amount,” the official said.

The tax on construction activity, including composite work contracts, was increased to 18% from 12% under GST. However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced after the GST Council meeting on Saturday that government works contract, for both Centre and states, will attract 12% GST with input tax credit.

Panel set up

The Railway Ministry has also constituted a committee to examine the impact of GST on the work contracts after receiving representations from contractors on increased tax liability.

Work related to track, construction of bridges, earthwork in embankment, supply, unloading and spreading of ballast, among others were facing increased tax liability after the government’s initial move to increase GST on such projects.

Claiming that a high GST rate on old contracts adversely affecting those in the business, a body of railway contractors here today threatened to go on a strike on August 20. “There is no clarity as to how the GST will be implemented with respect to old railway contracts. Contractors have received no payments since July 1 on account of this confusion.

We had recently met Railway minister Suresh Prabhu with the request to come up with a solution, but to no avail”, national vice president of Indian Railway Infrastructure Providers Association, Ashok Kumar Pathak told reporters here. He alleged that while Prabhu placed the ball in the court of the GST council, the latter refused to take any responsibility by asking us to sort out the matter with the ministry. Pathak said the bone of contention was the GST having been fixed at 12 per cent which was much higher than the VAT which contractors had been paying prior to the new tax regime.

“VAT payable in states like Rajasthan was as low as one per cent while in Uttar Pradesh it was not more than four per cent. On August 5, the GST council fixed GST rates for both old and new contracts at 12 per cent. This would hit the contractors badly. “We have, therefore, been requesting that as far as old works are concerned, contractors be made to pay not more than four per cent towards GST while the rest may be borne by the Railways,” he said.

“Left with no options, we have decided to observe a nation-wide strike on August 20. We hope that the government acts in time and we are not forced to do anything that adversely affects railway operations across the country,” he added.

An aggressive and well-coordinated road-to-rail freight conversion effort combined with an economic rebound directed more volume to Container Corporation of India (CONCOR), boosting the state-owned rail giant’s first-quarter earnings by double digits.

CONCOR officials during a press briefing cited double-stack train service expansion, to 479 runs from 164 runs in the January-to-March period, and a surge in imports as key factors for the first-quarter performance. Container volumes at India’s major or public ports grew 6.3 percent year over year in the first fiscal quarter to 2.25 million TEU, a growth trend that continued in July as traffic rose 5 percent year over year to 752,000 TEU. India’s GDP growth will accelerate slightly this fiscal year to 7.3 percent, according to IHS Markit forecasts, which expects improving domestic demand and recovering commodity prices will drive import growth. India’s GDP grew just shy of 7 percent in the first fiscal quarter.

CONCOR’s net profit during jumped 36.4 percent year over year in the April to June period to Rs. 243.38 crore ($38.2 million) from Rs. 178.48 crore a year earlier, on revenue that was up 11.2 percent to Rs. 1,550.44 from Rs. 1,394.35 in the same three months of 2016, according to a company filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange.

That is a solid start to fiscal 2017 to 2018 for India’s largest intermodal company after it suffered a 12 percent dip in net profit and a 5 percent fall in revenue in the last fiscal year.

An analysis of the results shows first-quarter operating income from CONCOR’s core international business increased 5 percent year over year to Rs. 1,131.5 crore, whereas income from domestic operations totaled Rs. 325.21 crore, a 32.5 percent gain over April to June 2016.

As a result of that strong growth, CONCOR’s market share climbed to 76.3 percent from 72.5 percent in the last quarter of fiscal 2016 to 2017, according to the statement.

Officials also said Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust’s (JNPT) direct port delivery (DPD) program, which is already creating major growth challenges for rival logistics providers. has had no impact on volumes handled at CONCOR’s Dronagiri inland terminal located close to the public harbor.

“We are able to maintain our volume levels and in fact, we started handling DPD containers in our CFS [container freight station] and in the last quarter, we also did some trains [for DPD volumes] and there will be a lot of emphasis in the coming days,” they said.

Officials said though it is too early to tell what the Goods and Services Tax (GST) means for the intermodal logistics industry, rail volumes are expected to grow in the coming months as the government ramps up efforts to shift more loads away from trucks that are clogging port roadways.

The company is said to control around 84 percent of rail cargo through JNPT, and at the ports of Mundra and Pipavav, its share is slightly more than 50 percent. It is in the process of adding more services connecting the two private ports to the Jakhwada Inland Container Depot, near Ahmedabad in Gujarat State.

To meet expected growth, CONCOR is looking to spend about Rs. 1,000 crore during the year on capacity expansion. The company currently operates 68 inland locations and another four sites through tie-ups with other service providers.

More than 800,000 protesters who are Marathas disrupted Mumbai traffic and strained its railway network on Wednesday as they pressed their demands for reserved quotas in government jobs and colleges for students. The Marathas are a politically powerful group because they constitute 33 percent of Maharashtra’s population. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that his government supports affirmative action policies for the dominant caste. But he offered no schedule for implementing new policies to benefit Marathas.

More than 800,000 protesters disrupted Mumbai traffic and strained its railway network this morning as they  pressed their demands for reserved quotas in government jobs and college places for students.

Young people and senior citizens of  the Maratha community waved saffron flags in a protest that the police said was free of incidents of violence, with more than 10,000 policemen on guard.

Tamil Nadu: Three constables allegedly robbed a labourer at the Chennai Central railway station last night and threatened to foist a theft case if he spoke about it. The Tamil Nadu railway police have today arrested the trio.

According to a senior Railway Police officer, the three constables — J Irudhayaraj, J Aruldhoss and S Ramakrishna — attached to the Tamil Nadu special police targeted a migrant labourer who was sleeping in the waiting area of the station. He was to board the train to Kerala in the morning.

Investigators say the constables took the man to an isolated spot with no CCTV cameras. They took away his purse containing Rs. 1,800, a new cellphone worth Rs. 16,000 and his watch. When the man pleaded with them, they gave him Rs. 300 for travel and food and left.

The man was scared to report the matter to the police. However, a few autorickshaw drivers who had witnessed the incident took him to the police station and the man filed a complaint

A senior officer said, “We have strong evidence. We have registered a case of robbery and extortion. If convicted they would be sent to jail for 10 years.”

Indian Railways has introduced new facilities to book Tatkal tickets through IRCTC’s website. Under “buy rail tickets now and pay later” scheme, a customer has the option to pay within 14 days of booking an e-ticket through the IRCTC website – irctc.co.in. This facility is also available for booking Tatkal tickets. Under the online Tatkal booking facility, customers can go to the IRCTC website and book tickets on a first come, first served basis by paying Tatkal charges. IRCTC processes 1,30,000 Tatkal transactions daily. A majority of these tickets is booked within minutes of the quota opening.

10 Things To Know About Tatkal Reservation:

1) The new facility, called ‘ePaylater’, is powered by M/s Arthashastra Fintech Pvt Ltd as a pilot project.

2) The service charge levied on use of the ‘ePaylater’ scheme is 3.50 per cent of transaction amount and applicable taxes. To make people aware about the availability of this method, an option of ‘ePaylater’ is displayed at the payment page of the IRCTC website

3) You will receive the payment link through email and SMS on making a booking and will get up to 14 days to make the payment, according to the IRCTC website.

4) “Please note that failure to make payment within 14 days will lead to levy of penal interest at the rate of 36 per annum and may also lead to cancellation of your ticket and/or user account deactivation,” the IRCTC website added.

5) In another Pay-On-Delivery option – powered by Anduril Technologies – for tatkal tickets, IRCTC users will be able to pay via cash, debit card or credit card by opting to have tickets delivered at their doorstep.

6) “The pay on delivery feature circumvents the use of a payment gateway and will help users make the bookings in just a few seconds greatly increasing their chance of booking a confirmed ticket under the Tatkal quota,” said Anduril Technologies CEO Anurag Bajpai.

7) Refusal on part of the customer to pay for the ticket shall amount to its cancellation and the customer shall be liable to pay for the cancellation charges, failure of which shall invite strict action as per law and user account will be deactivated, the IRCTC website said. Transaction charges for this facility range from Rs. 90 to Rs. 120 plus applicable taxes for transaction.

8) If you opt for the ‘Book Now, Pay Later’ option – powered by Anduril Technologies – via the IRCTC website, you will be led to a page which states: “In case, if the travel is within next 24 hrs, you are requested to pay online through payment link forwarded to the email given at the time of booking. Door step payment collection will be attempted within next 24-72 hours. In case of non-payment before the travel date, the ticket will be cancelled and the user will be liable to pay the cancellation charges.” After that you need to fill in the details.
9) After reports on social media and some websites that Tatkal booking rules will change from July 1, 2017, the Railways had issued a clarification, saying that there had been no changes. “It has been noticed that a news item is in circulation in various social media platforms, WhatsApp groups, and some websites which mentions that Indian Railways is introducing several changes and new facilities with effect from 1st July, 2017. This news is totally incorrect and baseless,” it had said in a statement recently.

10) The booking timings for Tatkal tickets were last changed in 2015 with booking for AC classes opening at 10:00 am and for non-AC classes at 11:00 am (one day in advance of actual date of journey excluding date of journey). There has no change in these timings and the same arrangement is continuing, the Railways added.

In a raid conducted jointly by anti-terror agencies and Railway Police, suspected explosive materials and detonators have been found in the Kausa area of Mumbra in Thane district. Nine detonators have also been seized in the raid. The police have ruled out any terror angle in the case though after an investigation.

The police say the arrested trio has criminal records. One of the accused, Mahinsa Ganur, had a dispute with a man called Ismail Shaikh and to trap Shaikh the accused wanted to plant the explosives and detonators under a car parked at his premises. Shaikh has a business and deals with old cars. The explosives were acquired by the accused trio from a place called Reti Bunder in Dombivli suburb of Thane.

According to the police, one of the accused Shah Alam Sheikh, a Railway Police Force informer, actually tipped off the police about the explosives and detonators after hatching the conspiracy. The Railway Police got in touch with the Thane Police and the Anti-Terror Squad. But after the recovery the police questioned Shah Alam and during questioning he revealed the details of the plot. Shah Alam had also told the police about the presence of RDX but when no RDX was found the police got suspicious about the whole thing, a source said.

The explosives are used in nearby stone quarries and the accused hatched the plot as they wanted to blackmail Ismail Shaikh and get some money, police said.

According to sources, the raids were conducted after surveillance and intelligence tip offs that were worked upon by the Crime Branch, Railway Police and the Maharashtra ATS. The police believe the tip offs were provided by the accused to make it look like a terror plot.

The police say the explosive material recovered is ammonium nitrate which is used to cause explosions and could be also used to make IEDs that have been used in several terror attacks in Mumbai – which is why they are now investigating as to how the accused could procure the explosives and detonators without being detected.

In a tragic incident, a 45-year-old man was killed after being run over by a train in which he was travelling to Haryana to meet his sister on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan, police said today.

Rajinder Kumar, a resident of Jalandhar, accidentally fell from the train and came under it at a local railway station in the district last night, a Government Railway Police (GRP) official said.

Mr Kumar was travelling to Panipat in Haryana to get rakhi tied on his wrist from his sister. He got down at the station to buy something when the train started moving, the official said.

As he rushed to get on the train, Mr Kumar lost balance and fell between the platform and the train, which ran over him.

His body was handed over to his family after post-mortem examination, the railway police said.

Days ahead of Independence Day, anti-terror agencies and the Railway Police have recovered a huge reserve of suspected explosive material and detonators in Thane’s Mumbra area. Three suspects have been arrested in the case, police said.

According to sources, the raids were conducted after surveillance and intelligence input was received by the Crime Branch, Railway Police and the Maharashtra ATS. The police have seized 15 kg ammonium nitrate and nine detonators in the raids.

Ammonium nitrate is used to make improvised explosive devices (IED) that have been used to cause explosions in several terror attacks in Mumbai.

The Thane Police is expected to reveal more details later this evening.

The top conservation body UNESCO has cautioned that the damage caused to the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway or DHR due to the protest to demand a separate Gorkhaland state may put in peril the World Heritage Site tag it earned in 1999. Two stations, Gayabari and Sonada, were torched while an arson attempt was made on Elysia Building, the headquarters of the DHR, during the strike that entered the 54th day today.

Indian Railways and UNESCO are working on a plan for the DHR, work on which had begun in mid-2016. An office to implement the plan was set up comprising a team of experts at Kurseong
Station, which was built in 1896, and falls midway on the 88-kilometre-long narrow-gauge railway network between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling.

The agitation in Darjeeling and nearby areas has stopped the project in the hill town and UNESCO has opened a temporary office for it at its headquarters in New Delhi. “Around June 8, the stir began in Darjeeling and we continued for a few days but finally, the situation became difficult and on June 12, we closed our project office in Kurseong,” Ms Chiba said.

“We evacuated our staff and asked them to go back to their hometowns and work from there and later set up an office at the UNESCO office in Chanakyapuri,” she said. “As soon as the area is made accessible, our team will visit Darjeeling to assess the extent of damage caused to this World Heritage site”.

Delhi-based conservation architect Aishwarya Tipnis, who is a member of the renovation

team, said DHR was inscribed in the UNESCO list 20 years ago, and it is “Asia’s first industrial heritage site to earn the coveted tag”.

“DHR is a complex cultural landscape, which impacts the everyday life of a large population. And, the unfortunate events of deliberate damage caused by arson attacks on Sonada, Gayabari stations and Elysia brings to light an important question regarding the protection of World Heritage sites in conflict situations in our country,” Mr Tipnis said.

After DHR, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the Kalka-Shimla Railway were given the UNESCO tag, and the three have been collectively designated as the Mountain Railways of India.

The only other railway property which enjoys the World Heritage Site status in India is Victoria Terminus (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) station in Mumbai.

“The objective of the conservation project is to provide a framework for management of the World Heritage Site with the stakeholders – the railways, local administration, civic bodies,

NGOs, tour operators – and people in general and an idea to collaboratively work towards its preservation and development by defining roles and responsibilities,” Mr Tipnis said.

According to the architect, if the DHR model of preservation goes as it is being planned, it will become a “yardstick of conservation” for various other projects in the field.