Southern Railway’s Madurai division has exceeded its original freight freight target by generating Rs 78.54 crore for the first quarter (April-June) of the financial year 2022-23. The division has generated freight revenue by transporting 7.16 Lakh Tonnes (LT) of goods.
The earnings, which are 35.04% higher than the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year, are 33.14% higher than the target set by the Railway Board, a statement said. The increase in freight traffic is due to increased loading of Fertilizers (3.26 LT), Limestone (1.04 LT), Tractor (0.70 LT), Coal (0.55 LT) followed by Charcoal and Quartz (0.34 LT each), Gypsum (0.08 LT) . ), soybean (0.08 LT) and railway material (0.76 LT).
The efforts of the Business Development Units have helped the Division to diversify into new commodities such as Quartz to Construction Industries, Limestone and Gypsum to Cement Industries, Soybean to Food Processing Industries, Charcoal in transportation to North Eastern Regions.
Moving tractors in NMG wagons to North-West Zone (near Jaipur) alone fetched ₹25.63 crore. In the freight segment, the contribution of fertilizers to revenue is ₹42.24 crore.
The loading in June stood at 2.55 LT, an increase of 36.78 per cent over the corresponding period and 30.34 per cent higher than the target set for the month. Overall, Southern Railway earned Rs 922 crore under freight segment during the first quarter of this financial year, registering a growth of 36%. It did a business of 3.114 million tonnes in the last June, registering a positive growth of 53 per cent, the statement said.