The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : SWR earnings on the rise

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Sunday, Aug 17, 2008
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Karnataka - Bangalore

SWR earnings on the rise

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: South Western Railway (SWR) has demonstrated a remarkable turnaround in its performance during the past few years in physical and financial terms by improving freight loading and passenger handling capacity, said SWR’s Bangalore Divisional Railway Manager Akhil Agarwal.

Speaking after unfurling the national flag on the occasion of the Independence Day here on Friday, Mr. Agarwal said the freight loading by SWR, which was 25.77 million tonnes in the year of its inception (2003-2004), has almost doubled now and its originating earnings has increased almost three fold.

On the performance of the division during 2007-08, it carried 63.8 million passengers as against 57.5 million the previous year, showing an improvement of 19.3 per cent. The passenger earnings increased to Rs. 543.93 crore as against Rs. 455.83 crore the previous year. The total earnings went up to Rs. 703.55 crore from the previous year’s Rs. 620.96 crore. The punctuality performance of trains stood at 99.6 per cent.

Extra coaches

In the first four months of the current year, the total earnings was Rs. 258.26 crore as against Rs. 213.12 crore in the corresponding period last year).

The division has attached 2,037 extra coaches and 540 special trains, he said.

Existing unreserved ticketing system at 18 stations will be extended to 65 more this year, Mr. Agarwal said. Facilities such as platform tickets through SMS, platform ticket cum body weighing machine, GPS-based location alert system, LCD monitors for dual information system, audio-video enquiry terminals and digital display boards, coach location guiding system, e-ticketing, I-ticketing and post-LPRS facilities have been provided.

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