Railways May Miss Freight Target

The target set for freight movement for 1996-97 is 410 million tonnes -- an average of 34.1 million tonnes requires to be moved each month to achieve this end. Against this, the monthly average of revenue earning freight movement during April-July has been 32.2 million tonnes. The monthly average during April-June was 31.9 million tonnes.

The shortfall, therefore, as per the current trend, comes to about two million tonnes a month, or eight million tonnes in four months. If the gap is not bridged in the next eight months, it is bound to affect its freight earnings in the current year which is placed at Rs 16,975 crore against 410 million tonnes of revenue earning freight movement.

According to official figures, the actual tonnage moved during April-July was 128.88 million tonnes. It was 3.13 million tonnes more than the target of 125.75 million tonnes while it was 8.12 million tonnes compared with 120.76 million tonnes moved in the previous corresponding period. But the snag is that to reach the annual target of 410 million tonnes, the monthly average is required to be 34 million tonnes. Otherwise, the accumulated shortfall may create a wide gap in the last quarter of the year.

The official explanation is that freight movement is slow in the first half of the year, picking up only in the second half after the monsoon and gains momentum in the last quarter. But this expectation did not materialise in the past two years. Last year, the target at 398 million tonnes had to be scaled down to 390 million tonnes and then to 385 million tonnes because of the slippages in the initial months. The movement this year, therefore, has to be faster by at least two million tonnes more per month to meet the target and not to upset the resource mobilisation plan.

The commodity-wise break-up of the movement during April-July was: Coal