South Central Railway’s special focus on enhancing freight loading is continuing to yield positive results in spite of the challenges posed by COVID-19 pandemic in this current financial year with 9.528 million tonnes (MTs) transported in July, more than 50% compared to last year’s loading of 6.341 MTs during the same time.
Major commodity – coal – has seen a revival in loading and has gained momentum with 4.139 MTs loaded last month, a 66% increase; and cement loading is another major contributor to the total freight, picking up by 53% with 2.811 MTs being loaded. Similarly, special focus being given to support the agricultural sector for transportation through railways has resulted in foodgrains and fertilizers loading registering 0.794 MTs and 0.735 MTs, respectively, informed senior officials on Wednesday.
The entire freight loading has been on an upswing in the first four months, April-July, when the cumulative loading has touched 38.164 MTs, which is 54% more compared to the same period in the last financial year. During the period, the loading consisted of 18.455 MTs of coal, 10.63 MTs of cement, 2.56 MTs of foodgrains, and 2.038 MTs of fertilizers.
General Manager Gajanan Mallya informed that factors such as increasing the average speed of goods trains, ensuring availability of wagons, restoring old traffic, attracting new freight customers, active business development units at headquarters and divisional levels have been showing results as the same is being monitored regularly.
Senior officials are on the standby to deal with any issues being faced by freight customers to be attended to immediately and assured that railways would continue supporting all segments of freight to provide safe, economical and fast transportation.