The Hindu Business Line : East Coast Rly freight traffic up 7.4%

Kolkata April 4 East Coast Railway (ECoR) posted 7.4 per cent growth in freight traffic at 83.8 million tonnes (mt) in 2006-07, up from 78 mt in 2005-06. The target for the year was set at 84 mt.

Break-up

The item-wise breakups show: coal 41.5 mt (40.9 mt), finished iron and steel items 2.67 mt (2.37 mt), finished fertilisers 4.67 mt (3.72 mt), foodgrains 1.43 mt (1.05 mt) and cement 0.84 mt (0.63 mt).

Iron-ore drops

The throughputs of iron ore for shipments dropped to 7.38 mt from 8.87 mt in 2005-06 and raw materials for steel plants to 6.52 mt (7.19 mt). ECoR sources attributed the drop in ore shipments to diversion of ore traffic from rail movement to pipeline movement in slurry form.

Earlier, Essar used to load five rakes a day for transportation of along the Kottavalasa-Kirandul line; now only three rakes are loaded while the balance two rakes worth of ore is transported in slurry form by the pipeline.

Law and order problem

The drop in the throughput of raw material for steel plants, as sources pointed out, was due to the critical law and order situation in the Bacheli area under the National Mineral Development Corporation so much so that for nearly three months beginning November no loading of rakes could be undertaken.

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