New Delhi, Jan 2 (FN Agency) Riding high on demand for freight movement, public transporter Indian Railways ferried 1,029.94 million tonnes (MT) of cargo upto December in FY22, 18% higher compared to 870.41 MT in same period last year. With focus on ramping up infrastructure across its network, the Railways’ capital spending during April-November period of FY22 stood at Rs 1.04 lakh crore or 48.5% of the capital allocation for the full financial year. Highlighting its achievements during 2021, the Railways on Saturday said that its safety record has considerably improved. It noted that there has been zero fatality on its network since April 2019.
The Railways in a statement summed up the year 2021 as a ‘Year of Major Transformation.’ “Year 2021 witnessed an unprecedented growth in development of infrastructure, innovation, capacity expansion of network, freight diversification,” it said. It also said that its on-time performance has improved with punctuality of Mail/Express trains being at is 92.55% during 2021-22 till December. Further, its average freight train speed is 44.36 kmph during 2021-22 compared to 42.97 kmph during 2020-21 (+3.23 %) as on December. The Railways also said that it has ramped up medical facilities installing 78 oxygen generating plants while 17 more oxygen plants are at different stages of commissioning. “69 Railway hospitals are providing treatment to railway staff affected by Covid-19.
In these hospitals the number of beds for Covid treatment has been increased from 2539 to 3948. Total Covid beds have increased to 6972, ICU beds from 273 to 404, invasive ventilators from 62 to 3544, additional 449 non invasive ventilators and 129 high flow nasal oxygen machines,” it said. In order to tap the vast tourism potential of India, the Railways have launched a new tourism product i.e. theme based tourist circuit trains ‘Bharat Gaurav’. Redevelopment of Gandhinagar and Rani Kamalapati stations were also carried out and completed.