year-on year (y-o-y) with 51.5 million tonnes of cargo during the month. It showed an improvement of around 2.5 percentage points compared to the preceding month. This growth in cargo traffic was primarily led by a healthy rise in volumes of coal and iron ore.

The coal cargo volumes stood at 11.1 million tonnes in June and grew by 16.4 per cent on a y-o-y basis. This is an improvement as compared to the traffic in the preceding ten months. Cargo traffic of iron ore jumped up from one million tonne in June 2015 to 1.7 million tonnes in June 2016. This translates into a growth of 65.6 per cent. The growth was mainly driven by a multi-fold increase in iron ore exports to China.

Container cargo volumes grew by 7.4 per cent to 10.5 million tonnes. Other products which registered an increase in cargo traffic during the month were edible oil, fertilisers, other liquids and other ores.

Cargo traffic of petroleum, oil & lubricants (POL), the largest contributor to total cargo traffic, remained sluggish for yet another month. It fell by 0.2 per cent to 15.9 million tonnes. This was the second consecutive month wherein the commodity’s volumes fell.

Among the remaining commodities, cement cargo traffic declined by 7.7 per cent. Cargo volumes of fertiliser raw materials, iron & steel and sugar plunged in the range of 20-35 per cent. Foodgrains cargo traffic dipped around 54 per cent during the month.

Cumulative cargo traffic in India during April-June 2016 stood at 159 million tonnes, registering a y-o-y growth of 6.2 per cent.

Source: Business Today