Railways triples freight goal to 98 mt

Driven by buoyancy in the economy and higher wagon capacity, the Indian Railways has increased the incremental freight loading target from 33 million tonnes to 98 million tonnes during the current financial year.

Indian Railways is expected to reach the 33 mt-target by the end of this month, having already achieved an incremental loading of 27 mt. In 2004-05, it took the railways took eight months to achieve an incremental loading target of 30 mt.

While commodity-wise data was unavailable, ministry officials said achievement of the target was based solely on better capacity utilisation.

Availability of wagons was improved by reducing the time taken to load, unload and despatch the wagon from seven days last year to five and a half days. In addition, the carrying capacity of certain types of wagons was also increased by 10-12 per cent.

Till last year there was a wagon shortage, but this year the Railways has 400 surplus rakes per day. It now guarantees wagons on demand.

It has managed to earn 75 per cent of the Rs 3,600-crore incremental earnings targeted for the year by August 20. Earnings from transporting goods has gone up by Rs 2,013 crore till mid-August, while the targeted increase was 2,600 crore.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also appreciated Indian Railways' performance. In a letter to the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, Singh said, "Railways has shown a remarkable performance in almost all parameters, including freight loading and passenger traffic. Wagon turn-around-time has also shown significant improvement, which is reflected in better operating ratio and substantially higher financial performance."

The railways reported incremental passenger earnings of Rs 600 crore till mid-August, against the targeted additional income of Rs 980 crore during 2005-06.

Officials said the Railways would make up for the shortfall by the other coaching (parcels and other miscellaneous services) earnings. While the target was to achieve Rs 110 crore additional income from this segment, the Railways has already recorded a Rs 96-crore increase in income.

Other coaching incomes have mainly grown on the account of better earnings from parcel services which registered a 61-per cent rise till August, ministry officials said.