Indian Railways: Freight Transportation Records Highest Loading

Indian Railways has recorded the highest loading in freight transportation. The Ministry of Railways in a release informed that in the financial year 2020-21, the Indian Railways transported the loading of 1232.64 Million Tonnes (MT). With this, the freight revenue of Indian Railways also increased to Rs 1,17,386 crore (approx) for the financial year ending March 31, 2021 as against the freight revenue recorded to Rs 1,13,897 crore during fiscal 2019-20. To be sure, these trains are running at double the speed of 44 kmph, up from 24 kmph speed in the last fiscal.

Since August 2020, the Indian Railways has run 450 Kisan Rail services and was able to transport over 1.45 lakh tonnes of agricultural produce & perishables, the ministry noted. Looks like that railway services are in accordance with the demand.

On the special train front, 1402 special train services are being operated in one day on an average. As of now, as many as 5381 suburban train services are operational along with 830 passenger train services. Notably, the railways has also included another 28 special trains that are being operated as “clones of highly patronized trains having high patronage.”

This year, some more trains will be added during April-May 2021 period that will allow clearing the rush in Central Railway. For this, 58 trains (29 pairs) and 30 pairs of trains on Western Railway tracks have also been added. According to the ministry, these trains will cater to the high demand coming from Patna, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Darbhanga, Barauni, Guwahati, Bokaro, Ranchi, Prayagraj, and Lucknow.

Meanwhile, the Indian Railways is expected to restore its passenger train services to pre-pandemic levels and this will be done over the next two months. However, an approval from state governments is needed for this and this will be requested given the pandemic comes under control. These trains will not be the regular ones but they will also be operating as special trains.

Source: FE