South Western Railway’s (SWR) gross earnings for financial year 2012-13 is higher by 11.82 per cent at Rs 4,063.13 crore, compared with the previous year’s (2011-12) earnings.
On the freight front, SWR carried 33.523 million tonnes of freight which is less by 2.13 per cent over the previous year, and the freight earnings for the year 2012-13 stood at Rs 2,546.81 crore, an increase of 12.27 per cent over the previous year, Sanjeeb Halder, Chief Commercial Manager, South Western Railway, told Business Line.
As for the passenger traffic, SWR carried 192.93 million passengers in the year 2012-13, which is 4.46 per cent higher than last year’s. Similarly, SWR has earned Rs 1,287.34 crore as passenger traffic, which is 11.41 per cent higher than the previous year.
While clearing rush during summer/holiday/pooja seasons, SWR introduced special trains and augmented with 3,273 additional coaches, fetching an earnings of Rs 12.07 crore during 2012-13.
Halder further said to cater to rail users, computerised passenger reservation facility has been provided at 149 PRS locations all over SWR. “It consists of 39 rail head locations, three non-rail head locations, 73 Unreserved Ticketing system (UTS)-cum-PRS locations, two Defence PRS locations and 32 locations functioning through India Post.
SWR, in co-ordination with the postal authorities, plans to identify some more locations to introduce reservation counters.
SWR plans new initiatives in bigger cities and is chalking out a strategy to provide the facility of Mobile Vans for booking of PRS in and around Bangalore.
As on date, Unreserved Ticketing system (UTS) is available at 171 locations. In order to provide the UTS services nearer to the Users, Railway Board have introduced the concept of Jansadharan Ticket Booking Sevaks (JTBS). It is now available at 57 locations on SWR, Halder added.
In addition to give more service, SWR has facilitated Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) at 62 locations, to cater to the needs of debit card holder’s population which is on the rise.
The requirement of differently abled passengers is also one of SWR’s prime concerns, for which required facilities have been provided at all A-1, A & B category station.