The Railways have recorded a 7 per cent growth in freight loading for the first half of this financial year compared to the same period last year.

The official data on freight loading achieved by the department shows that it has touched 247.87 million tonnes for the period April to September, compared to 231.62 million tonnes in the same period in 2001-02.

The increase has been particularly steep for foodgrains and coal, whereas it has stayed almost static for raw materials, iron and steel, and actually declined for petroleum and iron ore for exports.

For the month of September, the aggregate freight loading is 40.41 million tonnes compared to 39.05 million tonnes in the same month last year.

In foodgrains, loading has risen to 22.12 million tonnes compared to 13.83, as a result of which its contribution to revenue has doubled in this fiscal to Rs 1,530.16 crore against Rs 768.37 crore in last fiscal. This is substantially because of the impact of drought.

Coal tonnage has risen to 113.48 compared to 107.96 million tonnes in the first six months of this fiscal. But iron ore has slipped to 6.91 against 7.30 recorded till September, 2001-02.

The cumulative earnings for railways has reached Rs 12, 932.99 crore compared to Rs 11,738.36 crore, recording a percentage growth of 10.18 per cent.

But with traffic perceptibly shifting away to roads in POL and cement, the railways revenue for POL has declined to Rs 1,369.95 crore in this fiscal from April to September, compared to Rs 1,408.77 crore in 2001-02.

Similarly the other major revenue earner cement has also declined slightly to Rs 1,044.15 crore from 1045.31 crore even though its loading has risen in volume terms by 4.78 percent to 22.82 million tonnes from 21.78 million tonnes in 2001-02.

But compared to the major goods, the growth in loading of other goods has risen to 26.64 million tonnes, against 25 million tonnes in 2001-02 in the same period.

This has raised the earnings from this category to Rs 1,368.87 crore against Rs 1,203.51 crore recording a growth of 13.7 per cent for the railways.