GUWAHATI, July 3 - Decrease in transportation of coal, foodgrains and cement, among other commodities, resulted in a small dip in the year-on-year cumulative revenue earnings from freight traffic of the Maligaon-headquartered Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) during the 2018-19 fiscal.
NFR�s revenue earnings from freight traffic on an originating basis stood at Rs 1,164.51 crore in 2018-19, compared to Rs 1,202.69 crore in the previous 2017-18 financial year, resulting in an annual fall of 3.17 per cent.
During the period under review, the commodity-wise freight traffic on an originating basis of NFR also went down by 5.02 per cent year-on-year to 9.47 million tonnes as against 9.97 million tonnes in 2017-18.
While there was rise in freight earnings of NFR from products like raw materials for steel plants and mineral oil (petroleum oil and lubricants) during 2018-19, the overall revenue took a hit due to slide in transportation of commodities like coal, cement, foodgrains and container service.
During the fiscal ended March 31, 2019, NFR earned Rs 135.08 crore from transportation of 0.75 million tonnes of coal. Coal continues to be a major source of earnings from freight traffic for NFR, despite the annual drop witnessed this time.
Besides coal, other commodities like mineral oil, foodgrains and raw materials for steel plants formed the biggest component of freight traffic of the NFR zone.
In 2018-19, NFR earned Rs 160.85 crore from transportation of 1.42 million tonnes of raw materials for steel plants and Rs 8.94 crore from 0.12 million tonnes of cement.
NFR transported 0.58 million tonnes of foodgrains earning Rs 117.75 crore during the fiscal under review, while it also transported 0.32 million tonnes of fertilizers earning Rs 21.68 crore in revenue.
In the last financial year, NFR earned Rs 466.09 crore from transportation of 3.39 million tonnes of mineral oil.
Besides, the zone earned Rs 29.90 crore from transportation of 0.10 million tonnes of container service and Rs 224.22 crore from 2.79 million tonnes of other goods in the period from April 2018 to March 2019.
Overall, in the 2018-19 fiscal, Indian Railways� cumulative revenue earnings from freight traffic touched Rs 1,25,355 crore, a jump of over 10 per cent on an annual basis, while its commodity-wise freight traffic also registered a growth of over 5.3 per cent to 1,223.29 million tonnes.
Officials attributed the annual decrease in NFR�s freight traffic and earnings to the economic slowdown and added that it has led to a fall in demand of commodities like coal and cement.
They, however, exuded confidence that completion of the ongoing double-tracking projects in this region as well as expansion of railway network to remote parts of the NFR area will boost the revenue generation capabilities of the zone in the days to come.
