Indian Railways (IR) have reported a revenue earning freight traffic of 101.42 million tones (MT) for the month of June 2019, which translates into a growth of 2% compared to corresponding previous period. The revenue earning freight traffic of IR for the quarter ended June 2019 was up by 2.7% (to 307.34 MT) moderating from 6.4% growth registered in corresponding previous period and 5.3% growth registered in FY2018-19.

As Indian Railways being the monopoly of rail operations in the country, the overall originating container traffic figures of IR represent the overall volume of Indian Container train operator. Thus for the month of June 2019, the total volume of container train operators (CTOs)as reflected by the originating container traffic of IR stood higher by 3% to 5.13 MT. But on sequential comparison, the container throughput was down by 4% from 5.33 MT throughput registered in May 2019. Early single digit growth in aggregate CTO throughput for the month was largely due to higher EXIM volume which was up by 5.09% to 4.13 MT as domestic container volume was down by 2.91% to 1 MT.

For the quarter ended June 2019, the aggregate throughput of CTOs stood higher by 5.2% to 15.29 MT driven largely by higher EXIM container volume. EXIM container volume was up by 7% to 12.47 MT but that of domestic container volume was down by 2.1% to 2.82 MT.

The average lead distance for the month and quarter was lower at 848 KMs (down 4%) and 860 KMs (down 1.8%). Thus the container net tonne kilometre (NTKM), a measure of combined increase in goods loading and distance moved by IR for the month of June 2019 was down by marginal 0.7% to 4349 million KMs. The NTKM for the quarter ended June 2019 was however higher by 3.4% to 13159 million KMs.

Lead distance of both domestic and EXIM container though have declined by 6.2% (to 1166 KMs) and 2.2% (to 771 KMs) respectively for the month of June 2019, the NTKM of domestic only declined by 9.2% (to 1166 million tonne KMs for the month)as it was impacted by both lower lead distance as well as lower volume. But despite lower lead distance facilitated by higher volume the EXIM NTKM was up by 2.8% to 3183 million tonne KMs for the month.

Similarly for the quarter ended June 2019, while the domestic NTKM was down by 3.1% (to 3424 million tonne KMs)that of EXIM container was up by 5.9% (to 9735 million tonne KMs) despite lead distance of both domestic and EXIM stood declined for the period. This is largely due contrasting trend in volume registered by both domestic and EXIM container for the period with former degrowing and later registering growth.

Earnings of IR from originating container volume for the month of June 2019 was up by 4.3% to Rs 500.91 with Earnings/NTKM up by sharp 5.0% to Rs 1.1518.