Railway Accounts Department Examinations

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Costs - Statistics

 

Type

Consists of 

Consignor

Packing, Charges for loading goods into trucks, Transport from consignor’s godown to the Railway Station, Unloading and loading of the Consignment into the Wagon

Consignee

Delivery of consignment at the Destination station i.e., Cost of unloading from Wagon and loading in Truck and cost of transport from the destination station to consignee’s godown

Imputed

Also called Inventory Costs 


Interest charges on the capital value of Goods locked up during the period of Transport. 


Formulae: Inventory Cost per Tonne = V x R x T / 365


V -  Value of Tonne of Goods  


R - Annual Rate of Interest 


T - No of days in transit from Consignor’s Godown to the Consignee

 

Hence delay in transit puts the Consignee at a loss because inventory costs will go up. 


If Railway transit takes longer time, traders would prefer Road Transport which takes much less time, even though Railway Freight may be lower.  

Trader

Consignor Cost + Consignee Cost + Inventory Cost + Freight 


Trader’s Cost is useful for comparing Railway freight with the Road Transport freight.  


Trader’s cost - Goes into the price of Commodity in the Market

Operator

Acquisition, Maintenance, Operation, Improvement, Replacement of transport facilities, compensation for damages, interest on borrowed money, Dividend on Capital etc.  

Economic

Cost of transport to the Nation in terms of national resources of labour and material 


Its calculation is required for resource allocation on different means of transport.  


Also, take into account the cost of movement of goods by other means of transport also 


Excludes: Element of all taxes and duties of Central and State Governments


Key Points for MCQ 


  1. Imputed costs also called Inventory Cost 

 

  1. Formulae of Imputed / Inventory Cost per Tonne  = V x R x T / 365  

 

  1. V - Value of Tonne of Goods 

 

  1. R - Annual Interest Rate 

 

  1. T - No of days in transit from Consignor’s Godown to Consignee 

 

  1. Trader’s cost = Consignor Cost + Consignee Cost + Inventory/Imputed Cost + Freight  

 

  1. The trader’s cost goes into the price of the commodity in the Market 

 

  1. Economic Cost excludes Taxes and Duties paid by the Central Govt. and State Govts. 


—end—


Green Book - Statistics

 

Green Book - Statistics 


  • The basic document for the Development of Goods Unit Costs 

 

  • Consists of 7 Schedules  (A to G)  

 


Schedule

Consists of 

A

Framework for distributing working expenses of Goods services incl: Interest & Depreciation among various functional groups of service. 


General overheads - distributed to functional groups on a pro-rata rupee basis.  


Wherever possible - each individual account head is assigned directly to the concerned item of service


Remaining account heads (joint expenses) - apportioned on the basis of apportionment factors 


Central Charges:  Consists of erstwhile Demand Nos 1 & 2 - Railway Board, Audit, CTI, Surveys, RDSO & other Miscellaneous Expenditure (General) - shown as a percentage of working expenses. 


Expenses of line haul are bifurcated into the cost of carrying unit i.e. wagon and the cost of hauling the payload.  The costs are separately worked out for through Trains and Van/Shunting goods Trains.

B

Working expenses for various functional goods services are divided by the corresponding service units to come to the unit cost


The unit cost is separately worked out for the through and van goods train. 

C

Proforma for separating expenses under different heads further into sub-activity 


(i.e., details of cost documentation, Traction wise, Cost of Line Haul etc.) 

D

Framework for working out the unit cost for expenses separately in Schedule C


Cost of documentation per invoice. 


Cost of traction per engine hour & per shunting engine hour 


Maintenance cost of track & signaling for Train KMs / 1000 GTKM 


E

Expenses under different abstracts are combined for working out costs for various facets of operation i.e., 

i. Cost of terminal operations

ii. Cost of transshipment repacking etc.


Separately for through and van and shunting goods trains

F

Total expenses in Schedule E are divided by the related performance factors to work out the respective unit cost. 


Central charges are shown as a percentage of working expenses.

G

Summary of end results of Schedules A, D & F in the form of Table

 


MCQ - Key points: 


  1. Green Book - The Basic document for the development of Goods Unit costs 

 

  1. Green Book - Consists of 7 Schedules (A to G)  

 

  1. Central Charges - erstwhile Demands Nos 1 & 2 

 

  1.  Schedule G - Summary of Schedules A, D & F in the form of Table 

 

  1. Works sanctioned under SRSF - Special Railway Safety Fund also called Green Book.   However, SRSF (2001-2008)  at present not a Source of Finance