'Best-ever' freight action on Indian Railways

INDIAN Railways (IR) has recorded its best-ever performance in terms of the output from its freight business in FY 2022-23. As per preliminary data, IR has achieved an originating freight loading of 1512 million tonnes, an improvement of 94 million tonnes over the previous best of 1418 MT achieved in FY 2021-22, a growth of 7%.

The freight transport unit's NTKM (Net tonne Kilometre) also clocked an impressive growth rate of 10 % to breach the 900 billion mark for the first time to reach 903 billion NTKMs in the FY 2022-23 as against 820 billion NTKMs achieved last year.

IR has achieved an incremental loading of 74.6 million tonnes in coal, followed by 8.7 million tonnes in other goods, 5.6 million tonnes in cement and clinkers, 7.1 million tonnes in fertilisers and 5 million tonnes in containers.

The sustained efforts of Indian Railways to increase supply of coal to power stations, in close co-ordination with Indian Ministry of Power and Coal, have been one of the key features of the freight performance of IR in FY 2022-23.

The loading of coal (both domestic and imported) to power stations has increased by 84 million tonnes in FY

2022-23 with 569 million tonnes of coal being moved to power stations as against 485 million tonnes last year, a growth of 17.3%.

Along with excellent performance in transporting coal to the power stations, Increase in automobile loading has been another highlight of freight business in FY 2022-23 and 5527 rakes have been loaded in FY 2022-23, as compared to 3344 rakes last year, a growth of 65%.

With this, Indian Railways, has had a streak of 31 straight months of best-ever monthly freight loading which had started in September 2020.

Revenues improve

The gross freight revenues of Indian Railways are expected to be more than Rs 1.6 Lakh Cr ($24 billion) with growth rate of 14%.

The strong growth in freight tusiness has led for the first time for the combined freight and passenger revenue of IR to cross the Rs 2 Lakh Cr ($30 billion) mark with combined revenues expected to exceed Rs 2.2 Lakh Cr ($33 bilion).

Hungry for cargo

Following the mantra, “Hungry For Cargo”, IR has made sustained efforts to improve the ease of doing business as well as improve the service delivery at competitive prices which has resulted in new traffic coming to railways from both conventional and non-conventional commodity streams.

The customer-centric approach and work of business development units, backed up by agile policy making, helped the railways towards this landmark achievement.

Indian Railways is rapidly progressing to accomplish Mission100Percent Electrification and become the largest green railway network in the world. Some 6542 RKMs (route kilometres) has been achieved during 2022-23. Previous highest electrification was 6366 RKM during 202122, registering an increase of 2.76%.

In terms of new line (new line/doubling/gauge conversion), 5243 km was achieved during 2022-23 as compared to 2909 kms during 2021-22. Thus average daily track laying comes out to be 14.4 kms per day. It is also the highest-ever commissioning volume.

In order to increase line capacity to run more trains on existing high density routes, automatic block signaling is a cost-effective solution. During 2022-23, IR has upgraded 530 km with automatic signaling as compared to 218 kms during 2021-22, registering an increase of 143.12%. It is also the best figures achieved in automatic signaling in the history of IR.

To facilitate the public to cross the tracks on roads, during 2022-23, 1065 flyovers/underpasses were provided as compared to 994 flyovers/underpasses during 2021-22 showing an increase of 7.14%.

Indian Railways makes all out efforts to optimally utilise resources by mobilising scrap materials and sale through e-auction. This traffic increased by 7.90%.

Gati Shakti freight terminals

To increase its share in freight segment, IR is prioritizing development of Gatishakti freight terminals. During 202223, 30 freight terminals were created as compared to 21 freight terminals in 2021-22.

Following the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s vision of “Gati Shakti” (Speed Power) and Ministry of Railways’ policy regarding Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo

Terminal (GCT) launched in 2021, Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals are being developed for handling rail cargos.

It has been targeted to commission 100 Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals within next three financial years. The location of GCTs is being decided on the basis of demand from industry and potential of cargo traffic.

The GCTs are being developed by private players, and can be developed on non-railway land or fully/partially on railway land. For GCTs to be developed on non-railway land, the operators will identify the location and will construct the terminal after obtaining necessary approval.

For GCTs to be developed either fully or partially on railway land, the land parcels will be identified by railway and the operator for construction and operation of terminal will be selected through open tendering process.