mnthsNew Delhi, Dec 7 (PTI) The Indian Railways has registereda rise in both its freight and passenger business duringApril-November as compared to the same period last year,according to a data with the national transporter.
The freight traffic, which essentially serves the revenueof the railways, recorded an almost 5 per cent jump in loadingduring April 1-November 30, 2017, as compared to 2016.
Amongst the commodities which contributed to thisperformance in the freight traffic include iron ore, whichregistered a 5.16 per cent growth in loading, cement whichgrew by 10.14 per cent, steel by 16.23 per cent, containertraffic by 12.71 per cent and coal by 2.23 per cent.
"In fact, freight loading has seen a 0.79 per cent growthwhich is more than what our target was for these months," asenior official of the railway ministry said.
Overall freight loading saw a growth of 747.70 milliontonne in these eight months of this year, which is 32.02million tonne more than last year.
"In the passenger sector, we have grown by 5.22 per centduring April 1-November 20 over the same period last year andadded around 50.33 million more passengers. This shows thatrailways continues to be the preferred mode of transportationfor the people," Member (Traffic) Mohd Jamshed said.
The railways, Jamshed said has also earned an additionalRs 1,579 crore in this period as against last year.
With these numbers in the last eight months, the railwaysseems to have finally come out of the rut after a dip inpassenger traffic since 2013-14 and a marginal high in 2016.
PTI ASGKJ.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.