BHUBANESWAR: East Coast Railway (ECoR) has surpassed all records of Indian Railways in freight loading in 2023-24. The zonal railway has loaded 256.22 million tonne of freight between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024 breaking the earlier record.
With this, ECoR has become the first zone to cross the milestone of 200 million tonne freight loading for the fifth time in a row. The freight loaded by the zonal railway is around 6.1 per cent (14.72 million tonne) more than that of the corresponding period of last fiscal.
A railway spokesperson said ECoR was the second railway zone after undivided South Eastern Railway (SER) to load 200 million tonne in the financial year 2019-20. This year, it has become the first zone to cross 250 million tonne of freight, he said.
The zone has loaded 152.95 million tonne of coal, 13.29 million tonne of raw materials to steel plants, 20.77 million tonne of steel and slag, 31.26 million tonne of iron ore and other goods. Khurda Road division has contributed 159.94 million tonne followed by 76.48 million tonne by Waltair division and 19.8 million tonne by Sambalpur division.
All the three divisions have performed better than the previous year. The coalfields of MCL at Talcher, five ports in ECoR jurisdiction, iron ore mines at Bailadila in Chhattisgarh, major steel and aluminium companies and iron ore mines in Keonjhar district are the major contributors in the achievement.
ECoR GM Manoj Sharma said proper planning, coordination with government sector and industries and hard work have been the hallmark of this zone.