South Eastern Railway surpasses Railway Board loading target

KOLKATA: South Eastern Railway (SER) loaded 41.16 million tonne of freight between April-July this year. This was 8.54% higher than the target of 37.92 million tonne set by the Railway Board. Compared to this, SER had loaded 40.94 million tonne during the same period last year.

An increase in iron ore loading which forms the bulk of freight loading in SER, mainly contributed to this achievement. In teh first four months of 2012-13, SER notched up iron ore loading figures of 22.77 million tonnes.

In the process, it was able to surpass the last year's iron ore loading figures of 22.26 million tonnes. Among other commodities, pig iron, and finished steel, cement, foodgrains and petroleum oil & lubricants (POL) have also registered an increase over last year.

Higher freight loading also led to higher gross earnings, which includes earnings from freight, passenger, other coahing and sundries. SER achieved an earning of Rs 3606.89 crore in the current year as compared to Rs 3581.45 crore achieved last year.

SER's earnings from passenger traffic too showed an increase of 11.75% in April-July 2012 to Rs 414.59 crore, with passenger traffic recording an increase in both suburban and non-suburban segments.

Total number of originating passengers carried by SER in this period increased to 91.15 million, a 5.42% rise over 86.46 million passengers carried in the same period last year.