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Indian Railways on Monday claimed to have recorded the best ever August Monthly freight loading of 119.32 MT in the month.

The incremental loading in the month of August has been 8.69 MT and witnessed a growth of 7.86 per cent over the previous best August figures achieved in 2021, the Railways said in a statement.

With this, Indian Railways has had 24 straight months of best ever monthly freight loading and it has achieved an incremental loading of 9.2 MT in coal, followed by 0.71 MT in fertilizer, 0.68 MT in balance other goods and 0.62 MT containers. Increase in automobile loading has been another highlight of freight business in FY 2022-23 and 2206 rakes have been loaded in FY 2022-23 till August as compared to 1,314 rakes during the same period of last year i.e. a growth of 68 per cent.

According to the statement, the cumulative freight loading from April 1, 2022 to August 31, has been 620.87 MT as against 562.75 MT achieved in 2021-22 i.e. an incremental loading of 58.11 MT, with a growth of 10.32 per cent over the same period last year.

The freight NTKMs (Net tonne kilometers) have increased from 63 Billion in August '21 to 73 Billion in August'22 registering a growth of 16 per cent. The cumulative NTKMs in the first five months have also grown by 18.29 per cent.

Sustained efforts of Indian Railways to increase supply of Coal to Power houses, in close coordination with the Ministry of Power and Coal, have been one of the key features of the freight performance in the month of August.

The loading of Coal (both domestic and imported) to Power Houses has increased by 10.46 MT in August with 44.64 MT Coal being moved to Power houses as against 34.18 MT last year, i.e. a growth of 31 per cent. Cumulatively, in the first five months of the year, IR has loaded more than 58.41 MT extra coal to Power Houses as compared to the same period of last year, with a growth of more than 32 per cent, the statement said.