According to highly placed sources in Rail Bhavan, the new policy - the first such policy announcement in the history of Indian Railways - will be unveiled by Railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in the first week of January.

The move puts an end to Railways' subsidiary, Container Corporation of India's (Concor) monopoly in the containerised transport segment. With this, Lalu Prasad also stands to make history as one of the country's most progressive railway ministers.

While that policy guidelines are already in place from 1994 allowing competition to Concor, in reality, no approvals have ever been given to private players by any former railway minister, forcing the framing of a fresh policy on the issue.

According to sources, the new policy opens up all the container freight transportation routes simultaneously and allows entry even to companies without prior exposure in the transportation sector. While no licence fee has been proposed, registration fee of around Rs 50 crore for the Delhi-Mumbai route and about Rs 10 crore for the lower traffic volume routes for a 30-year term can be expected.

This is substantially lower than the Rs 135 crore licence fee that was recommended by Rites for the Delhi-Mumbai corridor.

Potential bidders - which include global and domestic firms like P&O Ports, Maersk, NOL/APL, the Adani Group, SAIL, Tisco, Lafarge, Reliance and the AV Birla Group - will also need to either own a port or Inland Container Depot or enter into a tie-up with one to qualify for registration.

What's more, the over 25 new players who intend to pitch for this business, are being offered a level playing field with Concor, a long standing demand, and one that has faced the strongest resistance from the Railways. This means that like other new players, Concor and Pipapav Rail Corp will have to pay registration fees.

The motivation for all this change rests on the desire to wean traffic back from roads. The Railways, which will carry 670 million tonnes of freight this year, has a 33 per cent share of total transport. Just 1% additional traffic translates into Rs 1,000 crore in revenues, while profit margin in the business is 70 per cent