Railways freight traffic hits record high in January 2021

Freight traffic on Indian Railways reached an all-time high of 119.8 million tonnes in January 2021 from 118.3 million tonnes in the preceding month.

Railways carried 52.1 million tonnes of coal in January 2021, higher than 51 million tonnes carried in December 2020. With this, coal traffic surpassed its pre-Covid level in January 2021.

Cement & clinker traffic soared to 12.7 million tonnes in January 2021 - the highest volume of cement & clinker freight ever carried by Indian Railways.

Iron ore traffic for steel has been growing in double-digits over its year-ago levels for five months in a row. Railway traffic of iron ore for exports surged by 40.9 per cent in January 2021 over its level in December 2020.

Traffic of pig iron and finished steel soared to an all-time high of 5.9 million in January.

Traffic of containers also surged to its all-time high of 6.3 million tonnes in January 2021, hinting towards further improvement in trade during the month.

Shivani Sharma, Mohsin Shaikh