The South Western Railway has recorded a surge in freight operations and loading since the last few months and it hit a new high in October.
A release said after a relative slowdown during the first four months of the lockdown necessitated due to pandemic, freight loading has picked up in SWR consistently from August 2020 and the zone has steadily loaded over 3.0 million tonnes every month since then.
“After the setting up of the Business Development Units (BDU) on SWR both at the zonal and divisional levels in April 2020, the freight loading has picked up. A slew of freight incentive schemes and concessions were announced to give boost to freight loading and attract customers to use Railways as their preferred mode of transport of goods and to bring more and more commodities into the freight basket of Railways’’, the release added.
During this financial year, SWR has loaded 19.51 million tonnes of freight up to October 2020. The release said in spite of the restrictions due to the pandemic, SWR has so far loaded 5.035 million tonnes of coal to ensure uninterrupted power generation for the plants in Karnataka.
The zone continued to load Hot Rolled Coil Steel from the steel plants and 4.768 million tonnes of steel were loaded till October 2020 during the current financial year. “Despite the lockdown, SWR could load over 10,000 tonnes of foodgrains and maintained the food chain in Karnataka’’, the release added.
For the months of September and October 2020, the SWR has surpassed the freight loading target set by the Railway Board and also corresponding figures of last year. During September, the SWR loaded 3.03 million tonnes of freight which is 4.48 per cent higher compared to the corresponding period last year. During October, the loading hit 3.22 million tones which is 8.61 per cent higher than the same period last year.
The highlight of this year's freight loading is quantum jump in transportation of automobiles from Doddaballapur, Penukonda, Kadakola, Hosur etc. On an average one rake of New Millennium Goods has been transported from SWR every day of the month during October, according to the release.
SWR General Manager Ajay Kumar Singh said freight operations are being ramped up and efforts are being made to match last year's loading by the end of the current quarter.
