Nagpur: In a clear sign of economic recovery, Indian Railways two divisions in Nagpur posted best ever performance on freight front during the financial year in the month of October. The lockdown period saw Railways aggressively focussing on freight and the results are now showing increased throughout and also in terms of the earnings.
The Assistant Commercial Manager (Goods) S G Rao, and also spokesperson for division, said that the challenges existed on multiple fronts but coordinated approach helped us meet the targets. Under the leadership of Richa Khare, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), the entire team worked in tandem with focus on meeting the tight deadlines of placement of rakes, their timely movement, ending detentions enroute to delivery sites etc.
Nagpur Divisions of Central Railway and South East Central Railway (SECR) have aligned their marketing and operating strategies to work seamlessly in the field and ensure faster clearances, turn around of wagons and all this without compromising on punctuality.
Central Railway: For CR’s Nagpur Division, the black gold, coal, continues to drive its growth and as 2.904 million tonnes was loaded in a month, an increase of 31.2 per cent as against 2.214 million tonnes of last year. The same was achieved with hauling of 38 coal rakes on a single day, on October 29.
About 3.24 million tonnes of goods were loaded and the same was 32.4 per cent more than the previous year’s loading of 2.45 million tonnes. Apart from that maximum 2437 wagons were loaded in a day on October 29. At a monthly target of 2.882 million tonnes, this is an increase of 12.4 per cent. Freight earnings this year increased by 15.3 percent from 16.58 crores previous year to 249.72 crores. One significant development is loading of wheat, the last time it was done was in 2016, and the same was done at Betul providing a new commodity. As of now, 5 rakes of food grains were transported but they are bound to increase and further 3 rakes of iron and steel were loaded. About eight rakes of clinker too were loaded. Also through BDU, the Van MallWarehouse has been successful in transporting Dolomite traffic by rail for Bandadih (BDIH) in the ADRA division from the Wani Mall warehouse, generating revenue of 1.33 crore.
The speed of goods trains also registered an increase from 22.7 kmph to 44.7 in the current year. Mainly the punctuality of Mail Express trains has improved from 93.11 percent to 97.38 per cent, an increase of to 4.6 per cent over the previous year. A significant aspect is that punctuality is highest among the five divisions of Central Railway.
