Railways' freight earnings cross Rs 92,000 crore this fiscal, up 17% YoY

The earnings of Indian Railways from freight loading operations have crossed the Rs 92,000 mark in this fiscal so far, which is around 17 percent higher as compared to the total freight earnings in the financial year 2021-22.

"On mission mode, Indian Railways' freight loading for the first seven months of this financial year 2022-23 has crossed last year’s loading and earnings for the same period," the Ministry of Railways said in a release.

On a cumulative basis from April to October 2022, a freight loading of 855.63 metric tonnes (MT) has been achieved, as against last year’s loading of 786.2 MT. This marks an improvement of about 9 percent.

"Railways have earned Rs 92,345 crore against Rs 78,921 crore last year, which is an improvement of 17 percent," the ministry added.

Sharing the monthly figures, the Railways said an originating freight loading of 118.94 MT was achieved in October 2022, which was 1.4 percent higher as compared to 117.34 MT recorded in October 2021.

In terms of revenue, the growth last month was about 8 percent. The Railways said it recorded a freight revenue of Rs 13,353 crore in October 2022, as compared to Rs 12,313 crore clocked in the corresponding month of last year.

The surge in freight traffic and revenue between April-October is a result of the efforts taken to "improve the service delivery at competitive prices", the ministry said.

"The customer-centric approach and work of business development units backed up by agile policy-making helped Railways towards this landmark achievement," it further added.