North Central Railway clocks 3 mn tonnes in freight loading

Beats Railway Board's target of 2.94 mn tonnes; improved carriage of petroleum products, fertilisers, and food grains drive performance

North Central Railway (NCR) has beaten the freight loading target of 2.94 million tonnes set by the Railway Board by two per cent, transporting 2.998 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2016-17.

The higher freight loading was achieved mainly due to improvement in the carriage of petroleum products, fertilisers, and food grains, an NCR press communiqué said.

The upswing in freight loading has come at a time when Indian Railways’ freight loading had, in fact, reported a 10 per cent dip during the same period.

NCR reported earnings of Rs 297.79 crore from freight loading for the first quarter of the current financial year, which was 7.72 per cent higher than Rs 276.46 crore last year. This performance was also 4.4 per cent higher than the target set by the Railway Board for the NCR.

Besides, NCR registered Rail Coefficient of 99.52 per cent in fertiliser freight loading segment. NCR General Manager Arun Saxena is confident of maintaining the growth trajectory in coming quarters.

NCR is known as the Workhorse of Indian Railways and spreads across three divisions of Allahabad, Jhansi and Agra. It extends from Ghaziabad in the North to Mughalsarai in the East on New Delhi Howrah trunk route and from Palwal to Bina on New Delhi Mumbai/Chennai corridor.

NCR spans parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and covers about 3,062 route km.