COVID-Hit Railways on Slippery Ground as Goods Loadings Sink

New Delhi: With the COVID-19 curve trajectory having a deep impact on the Indian economy, Indian Railways is witnessing a sharp fall in the freight sector even as reviving the business environment has become top priority for the government now.

With six weeks into the new financial year, the declining trend is continuing unabated in goods loading despite the continuous freight operations amid the lockdown.

Passenger revenue is also under tremendous stress as train services are suspended since the beginning of the lockdown on March 24 midnight.

For the April 1-May 4, 2020 period, freight traffic decreased 34.14% to 74.75 million tonnes (MT), while earnings for the period, too, decreased 43% to Rs 6,836.10 crore.

During March 2020, freight traffic at 103.07 MT was down 13.92% over 2018-19, while earnings, too, dropped 19.39%.

The public transporter carried 1,210.46 MT of freight in 2019-20 compared with 1,223.17 MT in 2018-19, a decline of 1.04%. Similarly, earnings for the year also saw a drop of 1.67% to Rs 1.23 trillion against Rs 1.25 trillion for 2018-19. 

For 2019-20, freight volume declined 12.7 MT while earnings from it were down Rs 2,096 crore, according railway data.
The drop in loadings and earnings in the last fiscal can be attributed to the economic downturn which became worse in the current fiscal due to the pandemic, said a senior Railway Ministry official.  

In fact, the Railways had given some discount in container sector which encouraged the operators to do some business in the lockdown period.

According to industry sources, in order to fight the corona effect and imbalance in export-import cargo, Indian Railways has permitted free empty running of container trains while charging only for loaded containers up to April 30, 2020 which was further extended up to May 8, 2020. This measure had very positive results and increase in share from various ports.

But now the situation has become very grim due to imbalance and overall reduction in exim trade.

Acknowledging the crisis, a Railway official said a policy was in the making to incentivise exports over imports so that loaded container movement could be encouraged.

Except in foodgrain, flour and pulses, there was decline in all other commodities in the current year so far, according to the data.

Taking note of the contraction in passenger and freight business, the senior official said: "This is an unusual situation. Rail freight always depends on the core sector and industrial economy. Since industrial activity has declined, it was bound to affect the situation," said the official.

Hoping for gradual improvement, the official maintained that economic turmoil caused by coronavirus crisis would be a thing of past in due course..

While the worse may not be over with the novel coronavirus, the public transporter has started Shramik Specials for migrants from May 1 and AC Special trains on dynamic fares for passengers on 15 selected routes from May 12.
According to the Railways, about 800 Shramik Specials have been pressed into service, carrying 10 lakh stranded migrants across the country. AC Specials are also running with full capacity and nearly 50,000 passengers have travelled so far.    

The Railways is considering running more trains in a graded response to a gradual relaxation of the lockdown in the country.

When fully operational, the Railways run around 12,500 trains including 9,000 passenger trains and 3,500 mail/express trains on daily basis.