NF Railways improves its freight operations and earnings

GUWAHATI: Although normal running of all passenger carrying trains have been cancelled since the last week of March due to the COVID-19 pandemic scenario, the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) is continuously operating freight and parcel carrying trains on 24 x 7 basis despite of lockdown and other restrictions.

The effort by NFR not only helped to avoid scarcity of essential commodities within its area of operation, but also helped in reviving the local economic activity. The NFR has been able to operate 826 freight carrying trains during the month of June. Accordingly, proportionate goods earnings also showed an improvement. Total goods earnings for June 2020 was Rs 172.29 crores as against Rs. 160.61 crores during the corresponding month of last year. This increase is very significant considering the lack of economic activities, closure of many factories due to lock-downand various COVID-19 related restrictions, stated a release.

Initiatives taken by NFR have lead to increase in loading of POL product, Dolomite etc during last month. POL was the highest loaded commodity in NFR with earnings of Rs 41.79 crores, while loading of maize was the major contributor of foodgrain traffic by earning an amount of Rs. 34.12 crores last month. Parcel loading has also shown improvement. During the month of June, 2020; 152 parcel-carrying trains were run by the NFR to cater to the requirement of traders who wanted to carry goods in small quantities.

Various initiatives and efforts taken for improvement have also led to the increase in average running speed of freight-carrying trains. As a result, more freight-carrying trains could be handled. On June 21, 2020, the highest-ever numbers of freight rakes were unloaded in a single day when 37 rakes were released.

Freight train movement with Bangladesh also increased very significantly during the month of June, 2020. A total of 50 rakes were interchanged with Bangladesh, against five rakes in the corresponding month of June in 2019. This is an improvement of 900% and also the highest-ever interchange with Bangladesh, the release added.

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