Factors Impacting Railway Freight Traffic in India

The Indian Railway (IR) system is one of the four railway systems in the world that transports more than one billion tonnes of traffic annually. As against a growth of 4 per cent to 4.5 per cent in the last few years, IR is likely to achieve only 1 per cent growth in 2015–16. This is indicative of a plateauing of the growth in freight traffic. The main objectives of this study are and (a) identify the underlying reasons for the plateauing of freight traffic in the current year, (b) assess the prospects for 2016–17 and suggest possible strategies that IR could adopt for the coming year.