Title - SWR registers increase in freight earnings

They have gone up by 19.38 per cent compared to last year South Western Railway has increased its freight earnings from Rs. 802.94 crore to Rs. 958.55 crore till July 2012, registering a growth of 19.38 per cent compared to the corresponding period last year.

Addressing a gathering at the Independence Day celebrations here on Thursday, General Manager of South Western Railway Ashok Kumar Mital said that in spite of the ban on iron ore export and restrictions on mining , SWR has checked the downward trend in loading by picking up alternative traffic in the form of loading coal, cement, and steel, he said.

SWR carried 11.8 million tonnes of freight during the first four months of the year, against 11.6 million tonnes last year, he said.

Mr. Mital said that the passenger traffic in the current financial year had increased from 62.75 million to 64.58 million till July. As a result, the originating passenger earnings up to July, 2012, increased by 8.68 per cent from Rs. 369.66 crore to Rs. 401.73 crore. Elaborating on the initiatives taken to improve passenger amenities, Mr. Mital said that information technology was being used extensively to provide better passenger amenities by installing audio video enquiry terminals, digital display boards, coach locating guiding system, SMS-based redressal of complaints, and so on.

For easy availability of tickets, Unreserved Ticketing System had been extended to 242 stations and reserved tickets could be obtained at 138 locations. In addition, 54 Jansadharan Ticket Booking Sevaks had been appointed to issue unreserved tickets to travelling passengers, he said.

Mr. Mital said four pairs of trains as against 9 pairs of new trains announced in the Railway Budget 2012-13 had already been introduced, and the increase in frequency of five pairs of trains and extension of one pair announced in the Railway Budget had been implemented. SWR had also achieved punctuality of 96 per cent surpassing the target of 95 per cent set by Railway Board, he said.

Mr. Mital said that special thrust had been given to improving infrastructure and line capacity on various sections of SWR.

“During the current year, 41.5 km of new line, 27 km of gauge conversion, and 44 km of track doubling are targeted for completion. Of this, 11.5 km of new line between Kannivehalli-Chikmagalur, a part of Kadur-Chikmagalur project, and 7 km of track doubling between Channapatna and Shettihalli, a part of Ramnagaram-Mysore project, have been completed,” he added.