Southern Railway is marching ahead with increased efficiency and vigour in the second-half of the current financial year with good performance on the passenger traffic, gauge conversion, and doubling of/new lines fronts. Cargo traffic was the only area that was affected.

In the first-half, revenue increased by 5.61 per cent to ₹4,546 crore. Revenue from passenger traffic rose 11.3 per cent to ₹2,367 crore from ₹2,040 crore in the first half of last financial year.

The revenue target set by the Railway Ministry for SR (Southern Railway) this financial year is ₹9,070 crore, which is nearly 19 per cent more than the previous year. “”We are on track to achieve that,” says Vashishta Johri, General Manager, Southern Railway, which serves Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry , and a small part of Andhra Pradesh.

A sum of ₹1,038 crore was allotted to Southern Railway this year for gauge conversion, doubling and new lines. Of this, ₹467.28 crore was spent till October 31, Johri told newspersons recently.

On the passenger front, Johri said that the average number of passengers monthly increased to 68 million in September against 64 million in April. The Railway Ministry set a target of moving 349 million passengers this year, he said.

Gauge conversion

Some of the gauge-conversion projects done in the first half are: The second broad-gauge line between Chengalpattu and Karunguzhi (20 km) was inspected by the Commissioner of Railway Safety and upon his authorisation the section was commissioned for traffic on August 27.

With this, doubling works between Chengalpattu and Villupuram (103 km) have been completed and train services are being operated. Similarly, gauge conversion works between Pollachi and Palakkad Town was completed; goods trains are now being run in this section. Gauge conversion works between Pollachi and Podanur are progressing.

Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd completed doubling works between Vriddhachalam and Tiruvennainallur (39 km), and this section has been authorised for passenger traffic.

Doubling work between Manapparai and Tiruchchirappalli (37 km) has been completed and documents submitted to Commissioner of Railway Safety for sanction. Similarly, doubling works between Piravam Road and Kuruppanthara (12 km), Chingavanam-Chengannur (27 km), and Ambalapuzha-Haripad (18 km) are targeted for completion this year.

Passenger amenities

Southern Railway has been giving a lot of focus on passenger amenities. The ministry allotted ₹123.8 crore this year for passenger amenities, of which, ₹30.70 crore has been spent up to September.

Some of the amenities include 204 Automatic Ticket Vending Machines in 122 stations — on an average, 45,000 tickets are sold daily through ATVMs.

This has helped Southern Railway in achieving the ‘Operation 5 minutes’ initiative of the Railway Minister, said Johri.

Paperless ticket on mobile facility was introduced in the Chennai Egmore-Tambaram section in April. Subsequently, this facility was extended to cover the entire suburban network of Chennai and is now available in Chennai Beach-Gummidipundi, Chennai Beach-Tiruvallur, Chennai Beach-Velachery, and Chennai Beach-Chengalpattu sections. On an average, 1,200 passengers are booked through the mobile ticketing app a day, he said.

Cargo lags behind

The only area where Southern Railway has not performed up to the mark is cargo loading, which saw a decline of nearly 16 per cent in the first half to 20 million tonnes. This was mainly due to diversion of cargo to other regions, including South Western Railway. For instance, there was cargo diversion from Chennai port to Krishnapatnam and, similarly, from Mangalore to Goa, said an SR official.

However, there has been an improvement in coal loading in Southern Railway, he said. The ministry has fixed a target of 42 million tonnes of cargo for the current financial year. It will be tough to meet the target due to cargo diversion, he said.

However, there was considerable improvement in various operating indices during the current year. For instance, the average wagon holding during the current year was 6,815 wagons per day compared with 8,947 last year, an improvement of 24 per cent.

This has helped in making available wagons for the other Railways, thereby improving the loading of the Indian Railways. The wagon turnaround improved to 2.16 days in the current year from 2.50 days, a 14 per cent improvement.

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