The Hindu Business Line : East Coast Rly freight loading up 11%

Kolkata, April 10 In 2007-08, East Coast Railway (ECoR) loaded originating freight traffic of 93.18 million tones (mt), marginally lower than 94 mt targeted for the year.

“However, we loaded an additional 9.2 mt over last year’s 83.92 mt, registering a growth of nearly 11 per cent, highest loading achieved by ECoR since its inception,” Mr R.N. Bartarya, Chief Operations Manager (COM), ECoR, told Business Line.

Mr Bartarya attributed the shortfall in loading from the target to suspension of rake movement along the 450-km Kirandul-Kottavalasa line several times last year mainly due to the Maoist problem. There were other factors also. For example, the loading of coal at Talcher mines was affected on more than one occasion during the year. Finally, the coking coal imports at two ports, namely Paradip and Visakhapatnam, were less than estimated, particularly during the closing months of the year, largely due to the problems at the loading ports.

Giving the break-ups, Mr Bartarya pointed out that coal accounted for more than 50 per cent of the total traffic throughput in 2007-08 – 49.87 mt (45.15 in 2006-07) followed by iron ore – 21.78 mt (18.77 mt); raw materials for steel plants (other than iron ore) – 5.22 mt (3.67 mt); fertilisers – 5.16 mt (4.93 mt); finished steel – 3.67 mt (3.01 mt); cement – 1.52 mt (1.57 mt) and cement – 1.12 mt (0.89 mt).

The freight loading target for the current year (2008-09), as he said, was still to be finalised. “We’ll finalise it shortly but the commissioning of the Gangavaram port will take away an estimated three mt of our traffic comprising imported coal, limestone and other items, all on RINL account,” he said. “SAIL of course has promised to step up its coking coal imports at Visakhapatnam but we’ll still be shorter by an estimated two mt,” Mr Bartarya said.

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P.S. Nair is CEO of GHIAL