New Delhi: Indian Railways has recorded the best ever February monthly freight loading of 124.03 MT in February ’23. The incremental loading in the month of February has been 4.26 MT, i.e., a growth of 3.55 per cent over the previous best February figures achieved in 2022.

With this, Indian Railways has had 30 straight months of best ever monthly freight loading. IR has achieved an incremental loading of 3.18 MT in coal, followed by 0.94 MT in Fertilizers, 0.66 MT in balance of other goods, 0.28 MT in POL and 0.27 MT in container.

Increase in automobile loading has been another highlight of freight business in FY 2022-23 and 5015 rakes have been loaded in FY 2022-23 till February as compared to 2966 rakes during the same period of last year, i.e., a growth of 69 per cent.

The cumulative freight loading from April ’22 to February '23 has been 1367.49 MT as against 1278.84 MT achieved in 2021-22, i.e., an incremental loading of 88.65 MT, with a growth of 6.93 per cent over the same period last year.

The freight NTKMs (Net tonne kilometers) have increased to 73 billion in February’23 from 70 billion in February ’22 registering a growth of 4.28 per cent. The cumulative freight NTKMs from April ’22 to February '23 has been 82 billion as against 74 billion with a growth of 10.81 per cent over the same period of last year.

The sustained efforts of Indian Railways to increase supply of coal to power houses, in close coordination with ministries of power and coal have been one of the key features of the freight performance in the month of February. The loading of coal (both domestic and imported) to power houses increased by 3.39 MT in January with 45.63 MT coal being moved to power houses as against 42.24 MT last year, i.e., a growth of 8.02 per cent.

Cumulatively, in the first eleven months of the year, IR has loaded more than 79.69 MT extra coal to power houses as compared to the same period of last year, with a growth of more than 15.44 per cent. /BI/