GUWAHATI: Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has improved its freight operations and earnings despite COVID-related restrictions since the last week of March this year.
“Although normal running of all passenger carrying trains have been cancelled since the last week of March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NFR is continuously operating freight and parcel carrying trains despite lockdown and other restrictions,” an official statement issued here on Wednesday, informed.
“NFR has been able to operate 826 freight carrying trains during June. Accordingly, proportionate goods earnings also showed an improvement. Total goods earning for June 2020 was Rs 172.29 crore against Rs 160.61 crore during the corresponding month of last year. This increase is very significant considering the lack of economic activities, closure of many factories due to lockdown and various COVID-19 related restrictions,” the statement said.
Initiatives by NFR have also led to an increase in loading of POL (petroleum, oil, lubricants) products, dolomite, etc during last month.
In fact, POL was the highest loaded commodity in NFR with earnings of Rs 41.79 crore while loading of maize was the major contributor of food grain traffic with earnings of Rs 34.12 crore last month.
Parcel loading has also shown improvement. Last month, 152 parcel carrying trains were run by NFR to cater to the requirements of traders who wanted to carry goods in small quantities.
“Various initiatives taken for improvement have also led to the increase in average running speed of freight carrying trains. As a result more freight carrying trains could be handled. The highest ever number of freight rakes were unloaded in a single day on June 21, 2020 when 37 rakes were released,” the statement said.
Freight train movement with Bangladesh also increased significantly during June, 2020.
“Fifty rakes were interchanged with Bangladesh as against five rakes in the corresponding month of last year. This is an improvement of 900 per cent and also the ever highest interchange with Bangladesh,” the statement added.