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Kolkata, Jan. 2 Eastern Railway (ER) has submitted a Rs 25-crore scheme to the Railway Board for approval.

The scheme presupposes upgradation of facilities such as construction of new railway lines, creation of additional facilities for carriage and wagon examination, new crew base and housing at Pakur loading point under the ER’s Howrah Division.

The need for upgradation of facilities has arisen in view of an impressive growth in loading at Pakur, according to Mr A.K. Maitra, Divisional Railway Manager, Howrah Division. Stones and coal are the two items of loading at Pakur. Till November this fiscal, the stone loading was 3.9 million tonnes (mt) as compared to 3.3 mt in the same period of last year and 2.9 mt in the same period of 2005-06.

The corresponding figures for coal loading are 2.3 mt, 0.7 mt and 0.05 mt respectively. “The growth in coal loading has been really significant,” says Mr Maitra attributing it to increased loading for power houses in Punjab by Punjab Emta, a joint venture between the West Bengal’s Emta Group and the Punjab State Electricity Board. At this rate, it is felt, the coal loading in 2007-08 might be around five mt as compared to 1.6 mt in 2006-07 and 0.09 mt in 2005-06.

Consequently, total freight loading in Howrah Division, as the DRM points out, too has increased to 6.5 mt till November this fiscal as compared to 4.3 mt in the same period of 2006-07 and 3.2 mt in the same period of 2005-06.

The division’s wagon-holding during the period has dropped suggesting fewer wagons are now handling larger volumes of traffic. In other words, the productivity of wagons has improved.

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