Coal continues to be single largest item of freight traffic of the Indian Railways (IR), with its share in total freight traffic set to rise to more than 47 per cent in 2012-13 from around 47 per cent in 2011-12. In the current fiscal, the coal throughput of IR is targeted at 485 million tonnes (mt) out of the total targeted freight traffic of 1,025 mt while the actual volumes handled in the last fiscal were 456 mt of coal out of a total of 969.78 mt. Thus coal alone will be 29 mt out of the targeted incremental freight traffic of 55.22 mt in 2012-13.
After coal comes cement with an incremental throughput target of 10.5 mt at 118 mt (107.5 mt), followed by foodgrains 4.1 mt at 49.75 mt ( 45.6 mt), the container traffic 3.4 mt at 42 mt (38.6 mt) and iron and steel 2.2 mt at 37 mt ( 34.8 mt). The throughputs of raw materials ( other than iron ore) for steel plants will post a growth of 0.85 mt at 15.25 ( 14.4 mt) and other cargoes 0.6 mt at eight mt (7.4 mt).
The iron ore traffic, it is estimated, will post a negative growth , marginally though. In 2012-13 IR is targeted to handle 104.65 mt of iron ore covering all segments like exports, domestic and integrated steel plants as against 104.71 mt in 2011-12.
ZONEWISE DISTRIBUTION
Zonewise, South East Central Railway, the largest freight-loading zone of IR, has been given a freight traffic target of 158 mt over last fiscal’s throughput of 150.73 mt.
The corresponding figures for other zonal railways are East Coast Railway 130 mt (120.77mt ), South Eastern Railway 118.3 mt (117.01 mt), South Central Railway 111.5 mt (103.17 mt) and East Central Railway 102 mt (94.68 mt). Thus, these five zonal railways together are to handle nearly 620 mt , or more than 60 per cent of the total targeted traffic.
Among other zonal railways, Western Railway has been given a target of 75.5 mt (70.64 mt), Eastern Railway 61 mt ( 57.75 mt), Central Railway 58 mt ( 55.61 mt), Northern Railway 50 mt (47.1 mt) and South Western Railway 34 mt ( 33.18 mt).
The highest incremental target , 9.27 mt, has been given to East Coast Railway, followed by South Central Railway, 8.33 mt. With coal import steadily rising, the zonal railways like East Coast and South Central, having exposure to both ports and inland collieries, will handle more traffic than others having no exposure to port related traffic. On the other hand, Western Railway with hardly any colliery link handles only imported coal , particularly through Mundra, perhaps the country’s biggest coal importing port.