New Delhi: Indian Railways is set to achieve 1.6 billion tonnes freight loading in FY 2024-25, making it the third largest freight handling railway system in the world, the Parliament was informed on Wednesday. Due to the implementation of several freight revenue initiatives, the freight carried by Indian Railways has jumped by 29 per cent from 1,233 million tonnes in 2020-21 to 1,591 million tonnes during 2023-24, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Lok Sabha in a written reply to a question.
During 2023-24, the earnings of Indian Railways (IR) were Rs 2,56,093 crore and revenue expenditure was Rs 2,52,834 crore. The net revenue has improved to Rs 3,260 crore in 2023-24. Major expenditure is done on staff cost, pension, and energy consumption, the minister said.
Some of the important measures to improve freight loading include encouraging the private sector to develop the modern rail freight terminals under ‘Gati Shakti Multi- Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT)’ policy and augmenting/ upgrading the infrastructure at railway owned goods sheds.
Various schemes have been implemented for the private sector to invest in wagons, including the commodity-focused specialised wagons such as wagons for cement, oil, steel, fly ash, and automobiles. The Railways has also been facilitating cargo aggregation to expand the commodity basket by the schemes, including the policy of “Cargo Aggregator Transportation Product” and “Joint Parcel Product-Rapid Cargo Services”.
Besides, several tariff-related measures have been implemented to enhance the rail share by making the rail mode competitive with respect to road transport. These include Short Lead Concession for traffic upto 90 km, Liberalised Automatic Freight Rebate scheme for traffic loaded in empty flow direction, discounts on loading of bagged consignment in open and flat wagons, discount in freight to fy ash/bed ash traffic, operation of Mini Rake for Container train, fixation of special haulage rate for Bulk Cement (cement in loose form) when transported in normal containers, the minister said.
Some of the expenditure management on railways includes manpower management, electrification of Railway tracks, etc. Measures like electrification of railway tracks have led to savings of more than Rs 4,700 crore under diesel traction in FY 2023-24, the minister said.
He further stated that the operational efficiency of the Railways has been improved with the speed potential of 110 kmph for trains extended across 80,000 km at present, as against only about 31,000 km in 2014. In addition, upgradation and improvement of about 23,000 km track has been done from 2014-15 to 2024-25 (up to Feb’25) for a speed potential of 130 kmph.