Bhubaneswar, April 1 (FN Bureau) The East Coast Railway (ECoR) has achieved a new milestone and created history with freight loading of 241.51 Million Tonnes from its jurisdiction in the current financial year 2022-23. The ECoR is the first zone to have achieved such figures in freight loading over Indian Railways. ECoR has registered an increase of 9.37 million tonnes more than previous year. in the 2021-22 financial year, ECoR loaded 232.13 million tonnes of freight. East Coast Railway is also the only zone under Indian Railways that has crossed the feat of loading 220 Million tonnes, 230 Million tonnes and 240 Million Tonnes of freight in the current fiscal. The Ministry of Railways had set a target to load 240.60 Million tonnes for East Coast Railway and it has successfully achieved the target for the FY 2022-23.
ECoR has loaded an average of about 10000 wagons per day during the current FY, notwithstanding many challenges and adverse conditions on loading and train operations like public agitations, Maoist activities and other railway construction activities. ECoR sources said coal was the major commodity carried by ECoR, which is about 149.64 MT, followed by iron ore 25.56 MT, iron and steel 19.33 T, fertiliser 5.90 MT container 3.89 MT and raw material for steel plants 7.79 MT. Among the three divisions of ECoR, Khurda Road Division handled 155.34 MT freight, followed by Waltair Division (69.63 MT) and Sambalpur Division (16.54 MT). The Khurda Road and Waltair have obtained the 3rd & 6th position respectively among 68 divisions of Indian Railways. During the last financial year, ECoR contributed 15 percent of total loading by Indian Railways East Coast Railway General Manager Manoj Sharma has congratulated the entire workforce for the achievement and said efforts and cooperation from all stakeholders have also helped to achieve this feat.