Maligaon, Nov 02: The loading of items in freight carrying trains from NFR has been showing increasing trend. During the month of October 2020 NFR loaded 0.7384 MT of goods, which is 5.3% more than the loading of 0.7022 MT done during the corresponding month of 2019. During the month of October Cement loading increased by 140% and P.O.L loading increased by 83.8%.
It may be mentioned here that freight figures continue to maintain the high momentum in terms of earnings and loading in the month of October 2020 for Indian Railways. Working on mission mode, Indian Railways’ Freight loading for the month of October 2020 crossed last year’s loading and earnings for the same period.
In the month of October 2020 Indian Railways loading was 108.16 million tonnes which is 15% higher compare to last year’s loading for the same period (93.75 million tonnes). Loading includes 46.97 million tonnes of coal, 14.68 million tonnes of iron ore, 5.03 million tonnes of food grains, 5.93 million tonnes of fertilizers and 6.62 million tonnes of cement (excluding clinker).
In this period Indian Railways earned Rs. 10405.12 Crores from freight loading which is also Rs. 868.90 Cr.(9%) higher compare to last year’s earnings for the same period (Rs. 9536.22 crores).
Various steps and initiatives are being taken by NFR to further improve the transportation of freight. This includes, opening of new stations for handling inward and outward goods traffic, regular virtual meetings with multinational companies and stakeholders for attracting piecemeal loading,initiatives by the Business Development units at HQ & Divisional levels and near doubling of freight speed due to continuous monitoring of assets.
It is worth mentioning that a number of concessions and discounts are also being given in Indian Railways to make Railway’s Freight movement very attractive. It may be noted that improvements in freight movements will be institutionalized and incorporated in the upcoming zero based time table.COVID 19 has been used by Indian Railways as an opportunity to improve all round efficiencies and performances.
