With extra individuals travelling by reserved class and a progress within the transportation of commodities — from coal and iron ore to gunny sacks and rice — the Indian Railways witnessed a year-on-year (y-o-y) surge of over 5 per cent in passenger visitors, and a rise of 1.68 per cent in freight loading throughout monetary 12 months 2024-25 (FY25) in comparison with earlier 12 months, in accordance with the information out there with the Ministry of Railways.
A complete of 715 crore passengers travelled by the Indian Railways between April 1, 2024 advert March 31, 2025. To make certain the full variety of passengers continues to be lower than the pre-Covid interval of 2019-20, when the full passenger depend stood at 808.57 crore. Nevertheless, it marks a rise of 5.07 per cent in comparison with 680.54 crore passengers who travelled by the railways throughout FY24.
The information additional reveals that out of the full passengers in FY25, a complete of 81 crore traveled by reserved class, together with AC and sleeper class passengers, and 634 crore had been unreserved class passengers. This included suburban journey, which constitutes over 55 per cent of the Indian Railways’ whole passengers.
Equally, the Indian Railways achieved over 1,617 million tonnes (MT) of originating freight loading in comparison with 1,590.68 MT achieved in FY24. This is a rise of 1.68 per cent or 26.70 MT in comparison with the earlier monetary 12 months.
General, the Indian Railways earned Rs 75,750 crore from the passenger phase in FY25, up 7.15 per cent from Rs 70,693 in FY24. The railways’ FY25 earnings from freight companies rose 1.61 per cent to Rs 1.71 lakh crore from a complete items income of Rs 1.68 lakh crore within the year-ago interval. in accordance with official information.
Commodity-wise freight loading
Coal continues to stay on the high within the Indian Railways’ whole freight loading combine with a share of over 50 per cent. Round 822 MT of coal, 89 MT of container, 51 MT of petroleum and nearly 50 MT of foodgrain was transported throughout by the Indian Railways in FY25. Sizzling rolled coils, ceramic tiles, wall care putty and rice are among the many main commodities in home container, in accordance with railway ministry information.
When in comparison with the earlier 12 months, the loading for home coal grew by 7.4 per cent, whereas loading for home container rose 19.72 per cent. Equally, loading for fertilisers was up 1.25 per cent 12 months on 12 months. Because of the next loading of coal by the Indian Railways, inventory at energy homes in India stood at 57 MT.
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Zone-wise freight loading
In keeping with official information, out of the 17 zones of the Indian Railways, seven zones loaded over 100 MT of freight through the interval into account, with the Japanese Railways being a brand new entrant on the record.
The East Coast Railway continues to stay the main freight transporter with a share of 259 MT in FY25, carefully adopted by 253 MT originating freight loading by the South East Central Railway.
South Japanese Railway, which is headquartered in Kolkata, ranked third on the record with whole freight loading of 212 MT, whereas the South Central Railway, headquartered in Telangana’s Secunderabad, is ranked fourth with over 200 MT of freight loading.
For the primary time, the Japanese Railway, one other zone headquartered in Kolkata with divisions in Howrah, Malda, Sealdah and Asansol, achieved 100 MT freight loading in FY25. General, Japanese Railway registered the very best freight loading progress of 16.11 per cent.
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That is adopted South East Central Railway, which achieved a progress of seven.28 per cent, the Northeast Frontier Railway (4.21 per cent), Northern Railway (3.89 per cent), East Central Railway (2.82 per cent), South Central Railway (2.14 per cent), East Coast Railway (1.19 per cent), Southern Railway (0.80 per cent) and South Japanese Railway (0.36 per cent).