Northeast Frontier Railway’s freight earnings from goods increased to Rs. 178.37 crs for the month of July. This is significantly higher than the last year’s figure of Rs. 143.40 for the corresponding month.
The zone has transported more than 3,000 inbound freight trains since the start of lock-down from 25th March 2020. Of this total, 682 freight carrying trains were unloaded during the month of July.
Goods like FCI rice, Sugar, Salt, Edible oil, POL, Food grains, Fodder, Pulses, Fertilizer, Cement, Coal, Stone chips, Iron/Steel, Potato, Onion, Sand, Gypsum, Maize, Pulses, Auto, Container etc were transported.
Increase in Bangladesh goods traffic
60 good laden rakes were interchanged with Bangladesh in the month of July -2020 against 23 rakes in the corresponding month of the previous year (July-2019) which is an improvement of 160.8% and also the ever highest interchange with Bangladesh.
This includes 20 Maize loaded rakes that were loaded for Bangladesh during the month of July-2020.
Business Development Units and other initiatives
In order to increase the freight transportation volume, N.F. Railway has also set up Business Development Units (BDU) at all the five Divisions i.e. Katihar, Alipurduar, Rangiya, Lumding and Tinsukia and at Zonal Head Quarter level, as per the instructions issued by Railway Board.
These BDUs are having frequent interactions with Trade & Industry players within their respective areas to find new traffic for movement by train.
Average speed of goods train in the month of July-2020 was 47.2 Km/hour against 26.3 Km/hour in the corresponding month of last year July-2019 which is an improvement of 79.4 %.