The Hindu Business Line : SE Railway focuses on beefing up infrastructure

Kolkata, Jan 25 South Eastern Railway (SER), aiming to help fulfil the Indian Railways’ objective of reducing accidents to zero level in the foreseeable future, has consistently utilised the funds from the lapsable Railway Safety Fund (of Rs 54,000 crore) for beefing up infrastructure in its system.

Briefing newspersons here on Friday at the sidelines of a Railway Safety Week seminar on “Prevention of mid-section derailments”, Mr A.K. Jain, General Manager, SER, said the funds have been used on strengthening of old bridges, better equipment, rolling stock etc., to ensure total safety.

He said the fund would lapse on March 31, 2008, and the plan was to seek extension of its validity.

Pointing out that accidents all over the Indian Railway system have come down, he said accidents at unmanned level crossings have become a major cause for worry.

While complimenting the railwaymen at all levels on the number of technical ideas thrown up to tighten overall safety in the running of trains, Mr Jain admitted that creating general awareness among the common folk, especially in the semi-urban areas, to the dangers of unmanned level crossings was proving to be a huge challenge.

Pointing out that in SER, there was no compromise on track maintenance, which was a continuous process, he said “we follow maintenance procedures meticulously”.

New terminal

He enquired on SER’s long standing plan to have a new terminal for its growing number of South-bound trains, Mr Jain said both Shalimar (which evolved initially as a freight station on the western side of Vidyasagar Sethu (second Hooghly Bridge) and Santragachi, on the Howrah line, were being developed now to accommodate more SER trains.

The problem, according to him, was connectivity through transport services to the city centre from both these points, for which SER has already sent concrete proposals to the State Government.

Freight performance

Regarding the 9-month freight performance of SER, Mr Jain said a 12 per cent increase has been achieved in originating freight loading, and the increase in revenues is expected to be around 8 per cent.

Having achieved 100 million tonnes of revenue-earning freight during 2006-07, SER is poised to touch 109 mt of traffic this fiscal.

More Stories on : Railways | Infrastructure | West Bengal

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
IBS Software signs pact with Air New Zealand

Concor hopes to begin Rourkela cargo terminal work by April

SE Railway focuses on beefing up infrastructure

Lap of luxury

Jet Air may invest $8 m initially in its cargo airline