Indian Railways carries 108.1 million tonnes of freight volume in March 2017

Freight traffic grows by 7.7 per cent

Indian Railways (IR) carried 108.1 million tonnes of freight traffic in March 2017 as compared to 100.4 million tonnes carried in the corresponding month of the previous year. This translates into a growth of 7.7 per cent which was owing to an increase in freight volume of commodities like iron ore, cement and coal.
Coal is the largest-carried commodity by IR. Freight traffic of coal grew by 3.2 per cent. Coal loading increased from 49.2 million tonnes in March 2016 as against 50.8 million tonnes in March 2017. Although coal transport for thermal power houses and steel plants declined by two per cent each that for other public users rose by 19.5 per cent.
Freight traffic of iron ore surged by 17.4 per cent to 13.4 million tonnes in March 2017. This growth was on account of a rise in iron ore movement to steel plants (2.4 per cent) and other domestic uses (31 per cent). In addition, the commodity’s freight traffic for exports jumped up from 310 thousand tonnes in March 2016 to 910 thousand tonnes in March 2017.
Cement freight volume grew by a healthy 20 per cent. IR carried 11.9 million tonnes during the aforementioned month as against 10 million tonnes carried in March 2016.
Apart from these, commodities which registered a growth in freight traffic were other goods (10.3 per cent), container service (13.8 per cent), foodgrains (5.6 per cent), raw materials for steel plants (12 per cent) and pig iron & finished steel (15.6 per cent).
On the contrary, freight traffic of fertilisers plunged by seven per cent and that of petroleum, oil & lubricants (POL) dropped by two per cent during the month.
The cumulative freight traffic on IR during April 2016-March 2017 remained almost flat. IR carried 1,108.8 million tonnes of freight traffic during the aforementioned period as against 1,104.2 million tonnes during April 2015-March 2016. Although iron ore freight traffic grew by a healthy 17.2 per cent during April 2016-March 2017, freight volume of coal declined by 3.3 per cent during the aforesaid period.