The Hindu Business Line : ‘Focus on revenues is important’

Southern Railway’s loading performance has been very good. It is one of the few Railways that is growing — not only doing better than last year, but also better than its own targets.

RAKESH CHOPRA, GM, SOUTHERN RAILWAY

T. E. Raja Simhan

Sitting in front of a huge photograph of Mahatma Gandhi alighting from a train, the Southern Railway’s General Manager, Mr Rakesh Chopra, speaks like an entrepreneur. With a sharp focus on revenue, he says, other issues such as productivity and efficiency will improve automatically. Things have changed at SR since he took over as its general manager on October 15, 2007. Preparing a business plan for the zonal Railway in April, he brought in a big change, with revenue, productivity and efficiency improving considerably. “There is no slowdown for us. We are improving on all fronts and will exceed the freight target of 33.5 million tonnes set by the Railway Ministry for the current fiscal. Our target is to reach 50 million tonnes by the end of the Plan Period,” he told Business Line in a recent interaction.

Excerpts from the interview:

On strategic planning

There was always a strategic plan. However, in the past we only looked at things every ten days and never talked in terms of money, but only in terms of productivity. If I lost tonnage today, I would pick up the cheapest traffic opportunity. Revenue was never given serious consideration. We thought it was time for a change.

We need to look at earnings. Productivity always follows the money. The daily and monthly trends were identified based on past data. New growth in divisions and industry were identified, and all divisions were asked to work on these targets. This has helped in all areas.

On freight performance

Southern Railway’s loading performance has been very good. We are one of the few Railways that are growing — not only doing better than last year, but also better than our targets.

Loading data from April to November reveals that we recorded 18 per cent higher loading than last year.

During October and November, while most Railways showed a slowdown in their loadings, the SR continued to grow and perform well. Comparison of October and November loading with last year’s achievements shows a 9 per cent growth and we are still 2 per cent over our target.

On infrastructure development

There was a change in contract management and contracting methods for capital expansion works. Big companies such as Maytas and Larsen & Toubro are now actively participating in large projects.

The Southern Railway will spend Rs 1,200 crore on capex this fiscal — double the amount it did last year. For the first time, the SR’s capex has crossed the Rs 1,000-crore mark. The Railway Ministry has sanctioned doubling 1,109 km of track at a cost of Rs 3,333 crore. This year, Rs 358 crore has been set aside for doubling works. And we have completed 380 km of doubling.

The Railway would have been able to achieve far more had there been greater assistance from the Kerala government in acquiring land for doubling the Ernakulam-Kayankulam section.

We are, however, confident that the State Government will assist us in achieving this soon. During this fiscal we plan to complete the doubling on the Shoranur-Kuttipuram-Calicut section, Calicut-Mangalore-Kankanadi section and the Irugur-Coimbatore section. We are also confident of the completion of the third line between Tiruvallur-Arakkonam and the doubling of Ernakulam-Mulanthuruthi section.

On electrification work

A total of 1,181 km of electrification has been sanctioned for the Southern Railway, including Villupuram-Katpadi, and so far 320 km has been completed. This financial year, we are confident of completing the 178-km long Villupuram-Tiruchchirappalli section.

Although gauge conversion is not traditionally regarded as line capacity augmentation work, it has tremendous value in terms of providing seamless connectivity.

About 1,912 km of track has been sanctioned for gauge conversion on this Railway, of which we have completed 654 km.

With the conversion of the crucial Villupuram-Cuddalore-Mayiladuthurai section, a second broad gauge line will be available for traffic flowing from Chennai towards Tiruchi.

This being one of the highest demand routes, this gauge conversion will go a long way in providing the necessary capacity on our system.

On improving terminals

No line capacity work can have results unless our terminals are equipped to handle additional traffic. As far as freight traffic is concerned, the north-east line, from Chennai to Gudur, cuts through an area that is fast developing into an industrial hub.

With the development of Ennore Port, much of the “dirty cargo” handled in Chennai will move to Ennore. The SR has finalised the yard plans for Ennore Port, including enhanced connectivity to the port from Athipattu station.

On growth in passenger traffic

The SR has shown a 12.5 per cent growth in passenger traffic over last year. Earnings from passenger traffic increased by 19 per cent. As against an average of 504 lakh passengers carried per month last year, we have been been carrying 567 lakh passengers this year.

In order to cater to this increase in demand, the focus of the Railway has been to maximise the utilisation of our resources, namely coaches. We have therefore used the lie-over period of all coaching stock in running additional trains.

This is done without any compromise on safety. As a result of the same, we have been able to run 1,235 specials to clear holiday and festival rush.

However, in the long term, there will be a need to run more trains for which our line capacity works are the only solution. These will go a long way in providing the additional capacity needed for running trains.

In addition, the Railway is investing on creating additional handling capacities at seven terminals, such as Chennai Central, Mangalore, Madurai, Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Rameswaram and Villupuram. We will also be creating new coaching terminals at Tambaram, Puducherry and Kochuveli.