Benchmarking the performance indicators of Indian Railway container business using data envelopment analysis

Purpose – Indian Railways being sole government organization for infrastructure, operations and regulatory functions entered for competition in the container segment in January 2006 through private-public participation for customer-centric competitiveness to break monopolistic control of Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) introducing limited licensing policy. The purpose of this research work is to carry out benchmarking the performance indicators in Indian Railway container business and select private players. Design/methodology/approach – A case study has been conducted employing data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology on secondary data of container terminals of CONCOR, Adani and Gateway logistics. Data from the year 1995-1996 till 2010-2011 have been used for performance evaluation within CONCOR itself and comparative analysis for all three organizations from 2005-2006 till 2010-2011. Findings – The exercise identified efficiency trends fluctuating between 87.5 and 100 percent within CONCOR owing to haphazard infrastructure developed while comparison with private players showed 38.31-77.59 percent efficiency fluctuation concurrent to licensing policy norms. Research limitations/implications – The reliability of data provided by the selected operators for needful research is merely on the information and available sources. Originality/value – The study enables the reader to gain some valuable insights from a managerial perspective by the use of DEA methodologies so as to formulate strategies to foster better performance.