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Fall in NFR�s revenue earnings from freight

By PRANJAL BHUYAN

GUWAHATI, Nov 29 - A lacklustre performance across all goods categories, especially fall in transportation of mineral oil and raw materials, resulted in a slide in the year-on-year cumulative revenue earnings from freight traffic of the Maligaon-headquartered Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) during the first half of the current fiscal.

NFR�s revenue earnings from freight traffic on originating basis went down to Rs 594.10 crore during April 1 to September 30 this year compared to Rs 636.42 crore in the year-ago period, resulting in a fall of 6.65 per cent.

During the period under review, the commodity-wise freight traffic on originating basis of NFR also went down by 7.69 per cent on to 4.68 million tonnes from 5.07 million tonnes in the comparative period of 2015-16.

In the first half of the current 2016-17 financial years, NFR earned Rs 52.43 crore from transportation of 0.29 million tonnes of coal compared to Rs 51.40 crore from 0.26 million tonnes in the same period of last fiscal.

However, its earnings from other major components like mineral oil and raw materials fell on an annual basis.

NFR earned Rs 209.75 crore from transportation of 1.45 million tonnes of mineral oil (petroleum oil and lubricants) during the first half of this fiscal as against Rs 244.46 crore from transportation of 1.54 million tonnes of the product in the year-ago period.

Similarly, its earnings fell to Rs 65.43 crore from transportation of 0.6 million tonnes of raw materials for steel plants (except iron ore) during April-September this fiscal compared to Rs 76.59 crore from 0.7 million tonnes in the comparative period of 2015-16.

In the first half of this fiscal, NFR also earned Rs 31.46 crore from transportation of 0.3 million tonnes of cement, Rs 136.74 crore from 0.6 million tonnes of foodgrains, Rs 8.66 crore from 0.15 million tonnes of fertilisers, Rs 13.67 crore from 0.04 million tonnes of container service and Rs 75.96 crore from transportation of 1.25 million tonnes of other goods.

Experts believe that a general slowdown in the economy has contributed to fall in earnings from freight traffic.

Overall, in the first half of current 2016-17 fiscal, Indian Railways� cumulative revenue earnings from freight traffic also went down by over nine per cent on an annual basis to Rs 48,342 crore, while its commodity-wise freight traffic also went down by 1.6 per cent to 532.32 million tonnes.

It is noteworthy that of the 17 zonal railways, only four � South Eastern Railway (Kolkata), North Eastern Railway (Gorakhpur), North Central Railway (Allahabad) and Northern Railway (Delhi) � witnessed a growth in the earnings from freight traffic during the first half of this fiscal.

Experts, however, added that freight traffic and earnings from it can receive further fillip in the NFR zone as work on the double tracking is taken up and railway services are extended to remote parts of the north eastern states.

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