In a bid to double the freight volume by 2024 and attract more freight traffic, the Ministry of Railways has advised Zonal Railways to set up Business Development Units (BDUs) at all zonal and divisional levels and stay in touch with industries and advertise the willingness of Railways “to attract new streams of traffic”.
- Business Development Units (BDU) were set up on South Western Railway (SWR) in Apr. 2020, both at the Zonal and Divisional Levels, which has shown a consistent improvement in freight loading.
- A slew of freight incentive schemes and concessions were also announced to give boost to freight loading and attract customers to choose Railways as preferred mode of transport of goods and also to attract more commodities into freight basket of Railways.
- Due to lockdown freight loading performance of SWR in the first two quarters of financial year 2020-21 was much less than that of last year.
- After a relative slowdown, green shoots of the economy are visible as freight loading on SWR has picked up in the last 5 months.
- Since Aug. 2020 SWR has been steadily loading above 3 Million Tonnes every month and so far loaded 26.40 Million Tonnes till Dec.2020.
- In spite of the restrictions due to the pandemic, the Zone loaded 6.45 Million Tonnes of Steel from JSW, Tornagallu, and 8.64 Million Tonnes of Iron Ore from Ranjithpura, Vysankeri, Swami Halli, Sasalu and MMEC near Chikjajur.
- SWR has also transported 6.61 Million Tonnes of Coal to ensure uninterrupted power generation for the power plants.
- Cement loading has picked up from ACC Ltd/ Kudithini, Ultratech/Ginigera & JSW/Toranagallu.
- Container loading has also improved from Satellite Goods Terminal, Whitefield and Mineral Oil loading picked up from Hassan.
- Due to relentless work of Railway staff braving pandemic, SWR could load 10,000 + Tonnes of food grains and maintain the food supply chain in the States that are served by it.
- Maize is being loaded from Ranebennur, Haveri, Vijayapura and Bagalkot.
- Monitoring of running of freight trains and ensuring availability of wagons for movement of freight is being done at the highest level.
- The Zone has been able to achieve turnaround in loading duly observing all Covid related protocols like social distancing, wearing of face masks etc.
- With the setting up BDU’s SWR has captured the freight transportation of automobiles from Doddaballapur, Penukonda, Malur.
- 12 rakes of New Millennium Goods Rakes was transported from SWR in Dec 20.
- In the month of Dec 2020, SWR has loaded 3.56 Million Tonnes of freight which is 14% more that the corresponding period of last year and also 5% more than Railway Boards target.
Highlights of Hubballi Division for Dec -2020:
- Hubballi Division of SWR did the bulk of the freight loading over the Zone loading 2.7 MT of freight in Dec. 2020.
- During the month of Dec.2020, Hubballi division loaded 1310 wagons per day which is 16% more than that of last year.
- As a part of BDU initiative, new traffic of Sugar bound for North Frontier Railways was captured from Badami Station.
- Sugar rake has been successfully loaded for Aara (Assam)/Rangapani (West Bengal) fetching a revenue of 70.9 lakhs per rake.
- Loading of 42 rakes of the Maize and 20 rakes of Sugar has been the highest ever in a single month for the last 4 years in Hubballi Division.
- Hubballi Division also achieved the highest steel loading in a single day of 16 rakes on 31.12.2020.
The turnaround in freight loading has been possible with the consistent monitoring by Shri Hari Shankar Verma, Principal Chief Operating Manager and Shri S P Shastri, CFTM at the Zonal Level and by Shri Arvind Malkhede, DRM/UBL, Shri Ashok Kumar Verma, DRM/SBC & Shri Rahul Agarwal, DRM/MYS.
Shri Ajay Kumar Singh, GM/SWR has informed that freight operations are being ramped up and all out efforts are being made to ensure transporting essential commodities. Shri Singh said that industries are now picking up and willing to transport more of Goods and Commodities due to flexible schemes, low tariff, faster movement, safe, secure, hassle free transportation by rail.
Source: South Western Railway-Press Release
