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Our Bureau

Kolkata, June 25 The Governments of India and Bangladesh are concerned at the low occupancy of “Maitree Express”, the Kolkata-Dhaka passenger train service launched in the middle of April this year, and the two Governments therefore are examining options on how to make it popular.

“Despite a much lower fare vis-À-vis that in the bus service between the two cities, the occupancy rate in the train service is as low as 30 to 40 per cent,” said Mr N.K. Goel, General Manager of Eastern Railway (ER), while addressing newspersons here on Wednesday.

One reason for this could be the long hours of detention at the border for Customs and Immigration checking by the Indian authorities. “We’ve also taken up the matter with the Customs and Immigration authorities,” Mr Goel observed.

Mr Goel ruled out the possibility of increasing the frequency of the present bi-weekly service, saying, “the first priority is to step up the occupancy level”.

Till the third week of this month in the current fiscal (April to June 20, 2008), ER, the General Manager said, posted an estimated 10 per cent growth in freight traffic at 10.61 million tonnes. Earnings from freight at Rs 554.78 crore was up by Rs 75.33 crore or 15.71 per cent during the period.

The passenger earnings during the period amounted to Rs 269.93 crore, posting an increase of Rs 9.36 crore. Earnings from other coaching dropped by 22 per cent at Rs 26.34 crore, due largely to a decrease in parcel traffic as a sequel to cancellation of three trains.

ER’s total earnings during the period at Rs 858.63 crore showed a growth of Rs 80.66 crore, or 10.37 per cent.

Earlier, Mr Goel released the new combined time table, to be effective from July, for ER, South Eastern Railway and Metro Rail. In ER, 10 new long distance trains and 43 new suburban trains, the largest number so far, are being introduced.

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