I am questioning my love for DC now. I like railways much more than that. :)
True, this is a rather bleak scenario. Moreover, there is no scope for a quick turnaround. With coal as the main driving factor, most of the other segments have been severely neglected for several decades, letting the road and air sector gain a foot-hold in alternative cargoes. Now, even if IR turns to other freight segments, it will be a slug-fest taking several years for them to gain a decent fraction of the total traffic. This is further compounded by the decrease in revenues from Coal, which would have been the main source of investment for the other projects.
...
more... The ideas that were being floated around a couple of months ago, like renting out railway station premises to weddings and events, advertising trains with sponsor names etc, while looking comic and sometimes down-right ridiculous, are much-required now for the non-traffic revenue to increase and compensate for the (hopefully) short-term decrease in traffic related revenue.
All is not lost however. Several reforms have been put up last year reducing freight loading charges in ports and access charges, which would encourage port-dependent traffic to switch to the railways. This would probably take another couple of years to show any substantial effect, but hopefully it should work in the way the report in the original post expects - showing impact by 2021.