Railways plans to create cement corridor

The Railways is planning to create a cement corridor to link factories manufacturing cement, clinker and fly ash for the seamless movement of these products, senior officials said on Tuesday. Officials said that the Railways is in talks with the Cement Manufacturing Association (CMA) to create a road map to link cement manufacturing factories in the eastern, central, Rajasthan and southern clusters.

The idea, officials said, is to create new lines where none exist and doubling the track where there is a single line.

The focus of the corridor is likely to be the Kutch region.


According to the CMA, cumulative cement loading grew from 34.82 million tonnes in April-October 2020-21 to 45.38 million tonnes in April-October 2021-22, a yearly growth of 30.33 per cent. Similarly, cumulative clinker loading also increased from 22.29 million tonnes in April-October 2020-21 to 31.09 million tonnes in April-October 2021-22, a growth of 39.48 per cent.

During April-October 2021-22, the cement industry has been the fourth largest revenue generator for the Indian Railways.

As of December 2022, Railways said that it has achieved the yearly milestone in freight transportation by crossing the 1,000 million tonnes (MT) mark.

The third biggest contributor to this growth has been the cement and clinker group.

It showed eight per cent improvement in volume -- 94.7 MT in the current financial year as compared to 87.7 MT in the last financial year.

Officials say that the Railways is also analysing the future demands of the sector while planning the corridor.