Southern Railway will operate a slew of new services on various routes in the coming months as it will spend around Rs 1,700 crore on various works, a top official said on Thursday.

‘This (sum of around Rs 1700 crore) is one of the highest in Indian Railway. The funds will be used on various works, including gauge conversion, construction of Road-Over-Bridges (ROB) and Road-Under-Bridges (RUB) and others,’ Southern Railway General Manager Mr Deepak Krishan said.

Addressing a press conference here after releasing the new Time Table which will come into effect from July 1, 2011, Mr Krishan said a lot of focus was being given on cleanliness and maintenance of coaches.

For this purpose, Railways has engaged authorised servicing agencies, including private players on pest control in coaches besides establishing a ‘most modern’ laundry in Chennai later this year to clean linen which will be of ‘superior quality.’

With more passengers opting for Air-Conditioned coaches, waste left back in coaches and its disposal was turning out to be a major challenge for the department. “But all efforts are being taken to maintain clean coaches,” he said.

As per the new time table, Southern Railway has introduced new services, the date of introduction of many of which will be notified later.

These include bi-weekly Duronto Express-Chennai Central-Madurai and Chennai Central-Thiruvananthapuram, Kanyakumari-Dibrugarh Vivek Express, Chennai Central-Mysore Superfast Express, Puducherry-New Delhi Super Fast Express and Mangalore Central-Palakkad Intercity Express.

On the revenue front, Southern Railway had registered a 8.19 per cent increase in passenger fare revenue, from Rs 2464 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 2649 crore in 2010-11.

‘This was achieved despite not increasing fares and by increasing number of services,’ he said adding Southern Railway was an ‘important passenger operation zone’ in Indian railways.

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