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After a brief slowdown in the initial months of the current financial year due to the lockdown, freight loading at the South Central Railway in September has seen an upswing, registering strong growth versus the same month last year.
Barring coal, loading of all other commodities, including cement, food grains, fertilizers, POL, and granite, among others, recorded higher growth in September whencompared to last year, according to Gajanan Mallya, General Manager of South Central Railway.
During the pandemic, the loading of foodgrains doubled from 2 MTs to 4.3 MTs.
In an interaction with the media on the zone’s performance during the last six months of lockdown, he saidthat there have been requests from some quarters to run Shramik special trains for migrant workers who are seeking to come back. “We are in discussions with States and will run them once we get nod from the Ministry of Home Affairs,” he said.
Freight incentive schemes
The General Manager said various freight incentive schemes and concessions for freight customers to enhance loading helped add to the freight volumes. During the pandemic, the entire railway network was functioning relentlessly toto balance the supply of essential commodities across the nation.
Taking advantage of the lockdown period, the SCR manged to complete a number of infrastructure projects, including commissioning of new lines, doubling and electrification, and maintenance of track and bridges on a large scale.
The SCR managed to run special trains, including Parcel Cargo Express trains, Shramik Specials and Passenger Special trains.
Between April and August, South Central Railway stood first among in track maintenance works.
The zone commissioned 89 km of new lines, 41 km of doubling and 44 km of Gauge Conversion works. In Telangana region, 43 km of new lines and 30 km of doubling has been commissioned. In Andhra Pradesh, 46 km of new lines and 11 km of doubling were commissioned. In Maharashtra, 44 km of gauge conversion has been commissioned under the zone.
The zone achieved the third-highest parcel loading across Indian Railways and transported 2.8 crore litres of milk through 587 milk tankers and operated 158 parcel special trains and transported 39,000 tonnes of commodities.
South India’s First Kisan Rail Service between Anantapur and New Delhi on September 9 was run to provide transport facility for the agricultural produce of farmers.
Significantly, the average speed of the freight trains enhanced from 24 kmph to 51 kmph.
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