The Hindu Business Line : South Central Railway freight traffic up 20%

SOUTH Central Railway (SCR) has registered 13.71 million tonnes (mt) of originating freight traffic in the first quarter ended June 30, 2005, more than 11.42 mt recorded in the same quarter last year, showing a growth of 20 per cent.

Encouraged by the performance in the first quarter, SCR expressed confidence that it could surpass the 58.25 mt target set by the Railway Board for the current financial year.

Iron ore loading, which dipped to 0.37 mt in 2003-04 from 13.32 mt in 2002-03 following the separation of Hubli division from SCR, has gone up to 2.46 mt in the first quarter. "Setting up of a loading point on the Bellary-Gooty sector and at some other stations in zone helped revival of iron ore traffic," an SCR spokesman said.

The official attributed the increase in freight traffic despite hiving off the division to "well coordinated efforts and concerted marketing strategies.

"These measures are aimed at improving effective utilisation of wagons and to reduce unloading timings. This helped the zone in meeting the demand for wagons in full," he said.

The "Terminal incentive scheme' was introduced at major terminals like Sanathnagar, Karimnagar, Warangal, Jaggayyapatnam and Kakinada. This scheme offered grace period for unloading beyond the prescribed time.

"This encourages round-the-clock unloading, while significantly reducing terminal detention," he pointed out. Thanks to this scheme, terminal detention in the zone had come down to an average of less than 22 hours from 25 hours. "We expect this to come down further," he said and added that this scheme would be extended to other terminals, progressively including iron ore loading terminals.

With a view to enhancing originating freight, the zone introduced several loading points at stations such as Ramagundam (for loading of petroleum products); Malyali, Tuggali, Rayalacheruvu and Guntakal West (iron ore); Surareddypalem (granite), Donakonda, Veldurthi (quartz), Uppaluru, Bhimadolu and Kamareddy (foodgrains); Kamareddy (fertilisers); and Rayanapadu (general merchandise).

This helped reduce wagon turnaround time to 2.8 days in 2004-05 from 5.9 days in 1991-92.

Putting the two decades of originating freight loading in perspective, the official said the traffic doubled from 26.04 mt in 1985-86 to 51 mt in 2004-05.

Giving a commodity wise analysis, the official said the coal loading had gone up from 9.78 mt in 1985-86 to 21.99 mt in 2004-05. Cement loading had reached 15.29 mt (3.2 mt); foodgrains to 3.82 mt (2.58 mt); and fertilisers 2.22 mt (1.24 mt).

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