Railways Cart 166.58 Mt Till July

Riding on a higher demand for steel, foodgrain and coal, the Railways have carted a record 166.58 million tonnes of cargo till July this fiscal.

Releasing the freight earning figures today, additional member, traffic, K K Gupta, said the Railways had achieved an all-time high incremental freight loading of 5.70 million tonnes in July this year compared to the same month last year, yielding a revenue of Rs 389 crore.

The rise in freight loading in July was substantial, compared to the average growth rate of three million tonnes over the past few months. The rise was on account of an increase in freight loading of two million tonnes of coal, 1.5 million tonnes of foodgrain, one million tonnes of cement and 0.4 million tonnes of other goods, Gupta said.

During the first four months of this fiscal, the growth in tonnage carried by the Railways was 52.54 per cent for foodgrain, 8.31 per cent for iron and steel, 5.36 per cent for coal and 5.85 per cent for cement. However, the growth in the traffic of petroleum and other lubricants was only 1.35 per cent, and there was a decline in the growth of cement traffic.

The earnings per million tonnes of the Railways had also climbed 2.92 per cent from Rs 50.48 to 51.96 this fiscal.

Gupta also said the sudden jump in July could be ascribed to better monitoring and management of freight traffic by the Railways.

He said, as a result, revenue worth Rs 4,000 crore, which was locked up because of the non-movement of freight, had been released.

He said