December 03, 2008

Indian Railways target 1,100 million tonne freight for 11th Plan

Mr KC Jena chairman of railway board said that Indian Railways have set a target of carrying 850 million tonnes of freight in 2008-09, going up to 1,100 million tonnes by the last year of the 11th Five Year Plan.

He informed that Indian Railways has already shown record loading of 794 million tonnes freight in the financial year 2007-08. Mr Jena said that "This exceeds the initial budgeted target of 785 million tonnes as well as the revised target of 790 million tonnes. With this, India Railways have achieved a growth rate of 9% YoY as compared to the previous year. Indian Railways have also simultaneously achieved the highest ever incremental loading during a single financial year to the tune of 65.59 million tonnes, beating the previous year’s record of 64.61 million tonnes."

Claiming that in the period between 2003-04 and 2007-08, average growth in freight loading was to the tune of 10.56% per annum, he said that this was all the more spectacular considering the normally long gestation periods in infrastructure sectors like the railways.

Mr Jena stressed that coal remained the backbone of Indian Railways’ loading revenue and constituted 42.4% of the total loading revenue. It grew by 7.47% YoY in 2007. But the highest growth took place in the loading of iron ore, which went up by 19% YoY.

He said similarly, there was growth in the loading of petroleum oil lubricant products. He added that "In the last 4 years, POL loading has been growing at a steady rate of 3.34%. Investments on the eastern and western dedicated freight corridors will commence shortly."

He further added that Japanese investment for the western corridor was likely to arrive in the latter half of 2009. He said "For the eastern corridor which is being developed with World Bank funding it may happen earlier."