With 3.55 pc surge, Indian Railways' freight loading clocked best-ever Feb figures in 2023
Mar 04, 2023
By Nishant Ketu
New Delhi [India], March 4 : Indian Railways (IR) has recorded best-ever February monthly freight loading at 124.03 million tonne (MT) in February 2023. The incremental loading in the month of February has been 4.26 MT, showing a 3.55 per cent growth over the previous best February figures achieved in 2022.
With this, Indian Railways has said it has had 30 straight months of best-ever monthly freight loading.
As per the official data released by the Ministry of Railways, IR has achieved an incremental loading of 3.18 MT in coal, followed by 0.94 MT in fertilisers, 0.66 MT in the balance of other goods, 0.28 MT in port of loading (POL) and 0.27 MT in container.
It further said the increase in automobile loading has been another highlight of freight business in FY 2022-23 and 5,015 rakes have been loaded in FY 2022-23 till February as compared to 2,966 rakes during the same period of last year, registering a growth of 69 per cent.
The cumulative freight loading from April 2022 to February 2023 has been 1,367.49 MT, against 1278.84 MT achieved in 2021-22, an incremental loading of 88.65 MT and showing a 6.93 per cent growth over the same period last year.
With this, the freight net tonne kilometres (NTKMs) have increased to 73 billion in February 2023 from 70 billion in February 2022, registering a 4.28 per cent growth. The cumulative freight NTKMs from April 2022 to February 2023 has been 82 billion, against 74 billion with a 10.81 growth over the same period of last year.
The commodity-wise growth numbers showed that IR has achieved growth in almost all commodity segments. For example, the sustained efforts of Indian Railways to increase the supply of coal to powerhouses, in close coordination with the ministries of power and coal, have been one of the key features of the freight performance in the month of February.
The loading of coal (both domestic and imported) to powerhouses increased by 3.39 MT in January with 45.63 MT coal being moved to powerhouses, against 42.24 MT last year, showing an 8.02 per cent growth.
Cumulatively, in the first eleven months of the year, IR has loaded more than 79.69 MT extra coal to powerhouses as compared with the same period of last year, with a 15.44 per cent growth.
