Indian Railways to create cement corridor

Indian Railways (IR) are planning to create a cement corridor to link cement and clinker plants along with fly ash facilities for the seamless movement of these products, senior officials. IR is in talks with the Cement Manufacturing Association (CMA) to create a road map to link cement manufacturing factories in the eastern, central, southern and Rajasthan clusters.

The idea, officials said, is to create new lines where none exist and doubling the track where there is a single line. The focus of the corridor is likely to be the Kutch region.

According to the CMA, cumulative cement loading grew from 34.82Mt in April-October 2020-21 to 45.38Mt in April-October 2021-22, YoY growth of 30.3 per cent. Similarly, cumulative clinker loading also increased from 22.29Mt in April-October 2020-21 to 31.09Mt in April-October 2021-22, a growth of 39.5 per cent. During April-October 2021-22, the cement industry has been the fourth largest revenue generator for the IR, report Economic Times.

As of December 2022, IR said that it has achieved the yearly milestone in freight transportation by crossing the 1000Mt mark. The third-biggest contributor to this growth has been the cement and clinker group. It showed eight per cent improvement in volume of 94.7Mt in the current financial year as compared to 87.7Mt in the last financial year.