The Hindu Business Line : SER hopeful of reaching 72.5 mt freight throughput

SOUTH Eastern Railway (SER)hopes to achieve a freight traffic throughput of 72.5 million tonnes (mt) in 2004-05, up from the target of 71 mt and the 69.15 mt handled in 2003-04.

SER sources attributed the improvement to the jump in iron ore movement accounting for the bulk of the total traffic, followed by coal, finished items of steel plants and petroleum products (in that order).

SER on an average loads about 9,000 wagons (in terms of four-wheelers) a day. Of this, the share of iron ore (for both exports and domestic integrated steel plants and sponge iron units) will be more than 5,000, followed by 1,800 wagons for coal loading, another 800 or so for loading of steel products and about 200 for petroleum products.

SER, it is felt, could have handled a much larger volume of traffic this fiscal but for limited infrastructure, both in terms of fixed assets and rolling stocks. Both the line and the terminal capacity are limited and capping it all, there is the problem of non-availability of wagons and locomotives.

In the next three to four years, the sources feel, the whole matrix of freight transportation by rail will undergo significant changes in the areas covered by SER as well as East Coast Railway carved out of the erstwhile SER.

This will happen because the rail connectivity to Paradip port will vastly improve, a new port in the private sector, Dhamra port, mainly for handling bulk traffic, will emerge, also in Orissa, and several new steel plants will be set up in the same State while the existing ones will undergo expansion.

"SER on its part has firmed up several schemes to meet the emerging challenges and has placed them before the Railway Board for approval," the sources add.

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