New Delhi: Indian Railways is ready to realize 1.6 billion tonnes freight loading in FY 2024-25, making it the third largest freight dealing with railway system on the earth, the Parliament was knowledgeable on Wednesday. As a result of implementation of a number of freight income initiatives, the freight carried by Indian Railways has jumped by 29 per cent from 1,233 million tonnes in 2020-21 to 1,591 million tonnes throughout 2023-24, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw advised the Lok Sabha in a written reply to a query.

Throughout 2023-24, the earnings of Indian Railways (IR) have been Rs 2,56,093 crore and income expenditure was Rs 2,52,834 crore. The web income has improved to Rs 3,260 crore in 2023-24. Main expenditure is completed on employees value, pension, and vitality consumption, the minister mentioned.

A few of the essential measures to enhance freight loading embody encouraging the personal sector to develop the fashionable rail freight terminals below ‘Gati Shakti Multi- Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT)’ coverage and augmenting/ upgrading the infrastructure at railway owned items sheds.

Varied schemes have been carried out for the personal sector to spend money on wagons, together with the commodity-focused specialised wagons similar to wagons for cement, oil, metal, fly ash, and cars. The Railways has additionally been facilitating cargo aggregation to broaden the commodity basket by the schemes, together with the coverage of “Cargo Aggregator Transportation Product” and “Joint Parcel Product-Speedy Cargo Companies”.

Apart from, a number of tariff-related measures have been carried out to reinforce the rail share by making the rail mode aggressive with respect to street transport. These embody Quick Lead Concession for visitors upto 90 km, Liberalised Automated Freight Rebate scheme for visitors loaded in empty stream route, reductions on loading of bagged consignment in open and flat wagons, low cost in freight to fy ash/mattress ash visitors, operation of Mini Rake for Container prepare, fixation of particular haulage charge for Bulk Cement (cement in free type) when transported in regular containers, the minister mentioned.

A few of the expenditure administration on railways contains manpower administration, electrification of Railway tracks, and so on. Measures like electrification of railway tracks have led to financial savings of greater than Rs 4,700 crore below diesel traction in FY 2023-24, the minister mentioned.

He additional said that the operational effectivity of the Railways has been improved with the pace potential of 110 kmph for trains prolonged throughout 80,000 km at current, as towards solely about 31,000 km in 2014. As well as, upgradation and enchancment of about 23,000 km observe has been achieved from 2014-15 to 2024-25 (as much as Feb’25) for a pace potential of 130 kmph.