FICCI president Onkar Kanwar said "The reforms initiated by the Railway Minister are innovative and will make the railway a much more customer-friendly organisation."

The schemes to attract a greater share of freight through public-private partnership would allow the industry to use railway infrastructure optimally, he said in a statement.

Railway Budget 2005-06: Complete Coverage

He also lauded the move to allow private players to run container trains and hoped that they would also be able to avail the same facilities like Concor.

ASSOCHAM president M K Sanghi said that allocation of Rs 24,000 crore (Rs 240 billion) for modernisation of services and the proposal for rationalisation of goods tariff by lowering it to 80 groups of commodities, instead of the existing over 4,000, was welcome.

"By and large, the Railway Budget seems to have been formulated keeping in view the interest of the common man," he said in a statement.

Kanwar and Sanghi both welcomed the wagon investment scheme and the setting up of Rail Land Development Authority.