With the summer heat reaching record highs in northern India in May, Indian Railways ferried 9.3 per cent more coal than last year, and freight volumes for all commodities on the railway network grew 3.9 per cent in the previous month, according to government data.
A total of 139.16 million tonnes (mt) of freight was loaded in May 2024 compared to 128.3 mt in April, up 8.46 per cent month-on-month, a senior government official said.
Indian Railways earned a freight revenue of Rs 15,230.9 crore in May, up 8.2 per cent sequentially. In May 2023, the national transporter had earned Rs 14,641 crore, a 4 per cent increase in freight revenues.
The ministry has not been able to improve its volumes for most commodities over last year. It has a target of achieving 3,000 mt of freight by 2030, for which it would need to double its freight volume at a rapid pace.
Meanwhile, it also saw higher passenger movement on account of the recently ended Lok Sabha elections and summer rush, for which the Railways is running 10,000 additional trains.
Coal volumes at most thermal power plants have been getting replenished at a steady pace, which officials say is largely due to better logistics planning before the onset of the summer, and full commissioning of the eastern dedicated freight corridor, which connects Punjab with Bihar and covers some of the biggest chokepoints in the Indian rail network.
The data for the financial year shows that cumulative freight loading in the first two months (April and May) of 2024-25 is 267.5 million tonnes — 2.7 per cent higher than the previous year.