Chennai: The Southern Railway has a good news as it’s freight loading for this year till October touched 20.87 million tonnes (MT).
When compared to the corresponding period last year, they have clocked a growth by 34 per cent. Between 2017-18, Southern Railway had hauled about 15.57 MT of freight load.
The railway has earned Rs 1,774 crore between April and October this year from freight earnings. Sources say that they have recorded a growth of 44 per cent in freight earnings when compared to the corresponding period of 2017-18.
According to sources from the railway, the major contributors for this year’s growth in freight loadings were food grains, container rakes, gypsum, iron ore, coal, iron, steel and raw materials for steel plants. Among them, coal contributed to 55 per cent of the total loading.
This year, between April to October, about 67 per cent of the consignment was loaded to power houses like Udupi Power Corporation Ltd, TANGEDCO, TAQA Neyveli (Neyveli Lignite Corporation India Ltd) and IL & FS Tamilnadu Power Company Ltd. In this period, sources from railway said that 0.63 MT of Petroleum Coke produced by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) at Irumpanam was loaded.
During April-October, the originating loading of dolomite and limestone recorded a growth of 61 per cent. They totalled to 1.48 MT. Last year, it was 0.92 MT. Likewise, this year till October, about 0.22 MT of gypsum was loaded. This registered a growth of nearly 47 per cent as 0.15 MT of gypsum were recorded last year. Gypsum was also loaded from the new siding at Kamarajar Port in Ennore and they weighed 28,000 tonnes.
Sources also said that 1.18 lakh tonnes of finished steel was loaded by M/s Jindal from their Salem Plant. About 71,000 tonnes of steel were then moved to Chennai Port for export while the rest was moved to Northern parts of India. When compared to last year, iron ore loaded by M/s. Jindal Steel Works at their Salem Plant increased by 65 per cent.