Bhubaneswar: The East Coast Railway (ECoR) has emerged as the first railway zone in the country to have crossed freight loading of 200 MT this fiscal.
The ECoR loaded 200.50 MT of freight between April 1, 2021 and February 14, 2022 against 173.82 MT in the corresponding period of the last fiscal, registering an incremental growth of 15%.
The ECoR crossed the 200-MT threshold in 320 days as against 360 days in the last fiscal. It had loaded 200 MT of cargo in 366 days in 2019-20 fiscal and in 360 days time in 2020-21 fiscal.
During the period, the ECoR loaded 113.35 MT of coal, 7.06 MT of raw material for steel plants, 18.46 MT of iron & steel, 27.22 MT of iron ore, 1.13 MT of cement, 2.56 MT of food grains, 5 MT of fertilizer, 2.34 MT of POL and 23.37 MT of freight loaded in containers and other cargo in all the three divisions of Khurda Road, Waltair and Sambalpur.
During the period, 132.54 MT of freight was carried from Khurda Road division, 57.21 MT from Waltair and 10.73 MT from Sambalpur. Khurda Road utilised 9452 wagons per day which is about 174 rakes per day. This Division also surpassed its last year annual loading performance of 131.36 MT. Similarly, Waltair and Sambalpur divisions performed better than previous year.
The ECoR earned Rs 19884.3 crore from freight transport registering a growth of 20% over the corresponding period of last fiscal.
Major contributors of freight included Talcher, Paradeep, Dhamara, Visakhapatnam, Gangavaram, Keonjhar, KK Line, steel plants, aluminium plants and other places.
During the current fiscal, ECoR is followed by South East Central Railway (SECR) with 182 MT and South Eastern Railway (SER) with 168.5 MT in freight loading.
