Kolkata, May 25 (IANS): Eastern Railways has set a target of ferrying 72 million tonnes of freight this fiscal after surpassing its target of 65 million tonne in the last fiscal (2014-15), a senior official said here on Monday.

"We had overachieved our last years' loading (of freight) target and the major commodity was coal. It comprised of 67 percent of the total load," ER general manager R.K. Gupta told media persons here.

He said last year, ER's earnings from the freight loading operations grew by 14.65 percent.

Revenues accounting from freight grew by Rs.715.06 crore at Rs.5,596.16 crore during 2014-15 against Rs.4,881.1 crore for 2013-14.

Besides the freight loading target during this year, ER is also planning at doubling its existing lines by over 200 kms.

A double-track railway (doubling) usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track.

He said presently 81 projects of ER is in the pipeline which involves laying of 1,260 km of new tracks.

During 2014-15, ER had laid new tracks totaling 45.8 km while doubling 163.93 km of existing lines.

In Jharkhand, a total of five projects has been undertaken amounting to Rs.2,550 crore. Of these, three projects totaling Rs. 1,400 crore are going on a cost-sharing basis with the state government.