Western Railway has become the sixth zone of the Railways to transport 100 million tonnes in a financial year. Western Railway is the first non-coal zone to achieve this feat. Some part of Maharashtra and Rajasthan comes in this zone. The traffic in this sector is expected to see a significant jump of 24 per cent in 2022-23 (FY 23).
The area has historically served the needs of industrial traffic. According to the analysis, there has been a radical change in the transportation of imported coal in this financial year. The nationwide coal crisis had pushed towards an energy crisis. This increased the dependence on imported coal.
Due to this, the coal transportation of Western Railway increased by 7.7 times in FY23. During this period coal was supplied directly from the western ports of Gujarat. Experts had pointed out that coal transported to power plants in eastern India was also transported through the ‘Rail-C-Rail’ model or waterways. The central government was promoting the movement of coal and other commodities through waterways.
This was expected to continue to benefit non-coal zones such as the Western Railway. However, Western Railway carried largely imported coal. But the share of coal in the total traffic of this zone was only 15%, which was much less than 50% of the Indian Railways.
Industrial traffic increased significantly in this spectacular financial year of Western Railway. In FY23, there was an increase of about 16 per cent in cement traffic, about 18 per cent increase in fertilizer and about 25 per cent increase in mineral oil movement through this zone. At the national level, the movement of finished goods remained weak, while the sector continued to grow.
