Indian Railways break record in freight loading during Financial Year-2021-22
Indian Railways breaches 1400 MT Freight Loading mark for 1st time in Financial Year-2021-22
Indian Railways has for the first time ever breached the 1400 MT Freight Loading mark in this Financial Year. The Originating Freight Loading of Indian Railways for the FY 2021-22 stood at 1418.1 MT (provisional) which is 15% more than the previous best set in FY 2020-21 at 1233.2 MT. The incremental loading of ~ 185 MT has been led primarily by Coal with 111 MT growth, followed by Cement at 17.2 MT and Balance other Goods at 15 MT.
The incremental loading of 185 MT with 15% growth is the best ever growth in both absolute and percentage terms. The previous best incremental growth in percentage terms was achieved in the year 1981-82 with 12.9 % growth. The previous best incremental loading in absolute terms was 66.1 MT achieved more than a decade ago in the year 2005-06.
A Year of Records, FY 2021-22 has seen the best ever figures in many indices including Freight Loading and Revenue. Below is the snap Shot of the records broken in FY 2021-22:
| Indices | Previous Best | Date/Period | New Best* | Date/Period |
| Freight loading | 1233.3 | FY 20-21 | 1418.09 | FY-21-22 |
| Gross Freight Revenue | ₹1,27,430 | FY 18-19 | ₹ 1,43,732** | FY-21-22 |
| Incremental Loading | 66.1 MT | FY 07-08 | 185 MT | FY 21-22 |
| Average Wagons Per day | 54,469 | FY 20-21 | 62,885 | FY -21-22 |
| Highest Loading in a single day | 1,03,737 Wagons (7.8 MT) | 31.03.2021 | 1,06,227 Wagons (8.14 MT) | 31.03.2022 |
| Highest Loading in a Month | 130.48 MT | March’ 2021 | 139.25 MT | March’ 2022 |
| Revenue NTKM | 702 Billion | FY 18-19 | 820 Billion | FY-21-22 |
* The Figures are provisional and might change slightly upon finalisation of Statistics.
** Gross Revenue figures before apportionment
Following the Mantra, “Hungry For Cargo”, IR has made sustained efforts to improve the ease of doing business as well as improve the service delivery at competitive prices which has resulted in new traffic coming to railways from both conventional and non conventional commodity streams. The customer centric approach and work of Business Development Units backed up by agile policy making helped Railways towards this landmark achievement.
Indian Railways achieved incremental loading in all commodities except Fertilizers where the demand was subdued due to High International Prices. The details of Commodity wise Loading along with incremental loading is as follows:-
| Commodity | 2020-21 | 2021-22* | Incremental Cargo | % Variation |
| Coal | 542.2 | 653.3 | 111 | 20.5 |
| Raw Material For steel plants (Including Iron Ore ) | 183.7 | 197.2 | 13.5 | 7.3 |
| Finished Steel and Pig Iron | 59.3 | 68.3 | 8.9 | 15.1 |
| Cement and Clinker | 121.2 | 138.5 | 17.2 | 14.2 |
| Food grains | 62.8 | 73.4 | 10.5 | 16.7 |
| Fertilizers | 54.1 | 49.5 | -4.6 | -8.5 |
| POL | 43.01 | 45.02 | 2.01 | 4.7 |
| Containers | 63.2 | 74.3 | 11.1 | |
| Balance Other Goods | 103.3 | 118.4 | 15.04 | 14.5 |
| Total | 1233.2 | 1418.1 | 184.99 | 15.0 |
* The Figures are provisional and might change slightly upon finalisation of Statistics.
