Indian Railways has set yet another record by transporting the most goods in history. This is one of the national transporter's most significant achievements since its inception. It loaded 1512 Metric Tonnes (MT) of goods in fiscal year 2022-23. It saw an increase in loading of 94 MT over FY 2021-22. The railways loaded 1418 MT of goods in fiscal year 2021-22.
A glimpse at goods loading during the last six fiscal years:
The national transporter loaded 1161 MT of goods in FY 2017-18, 1223 MT in FY 2018-19, 1210 MT in FY 2019-20, 1233 MT in FY 2020-21, 1418 MT in FY 2021-22, and 1512 MT in the previous fiscal year. With this, the railways have had a 31-month streak of best-ever monthly goods loading, which began in September 2020.
Reasons for the best-ever freight performance:
One of the primary reasons for the freight performance was the Indian Railways' ongoing efforts to supply coal to power plants throughout the country. This was accomplished in collaboration with the Ministry of Power and Coal. Loading of coal increased by 84 MT in the previous fiscal year compared to FY 2021-22.
Furthermore, it demonstrated outstanding performance in automotive loading. In FY 2022-23, a total of 5527 rakes were loaded, up from 3344 rakes in FY 2021-22, representing a 65 percent increase.
Freight loading in fiscal years 2023-24
In the first two quarters of fiscal year 2023-24, the national transporter loaded 758.20 MT of goods. Thus, it improved by 21.52 MT (approx) over the previous year's loading during the same period. It had a freight performance of 736.68 MT from April to September in fiscal year 2022-23.
