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| S Rly pegs freight target at 22.5 mt | | | / Business Standard June 18,2003 | | | |
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| S Rly Pegs Freight Target At 22.5 Mt |
| S Kalyana Ramanathan / BUSINESS STANDARD Jun 18, 2003, 00:00 IST |
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Southern Railways (SR) has fixed an overall freight movement target for the current financial year at 22.5 million tonnes (MT) as against last year’s 24.07 MT.
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| Though the prevailing drought conditions had severe impact on goods transportation, the target has been set marginally lower , only following spinning off two divisions from SC zone, an official said.
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Mysore and Bangalore divisions have been spun off from the SR and now it has five divisions as against the seven divisions till the last year.
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On the revenue front, the Southern Railways recorded total revenues of Rs 2,747 crore during the 2002-03 as against the target of Rs 2,796 crore.
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Despite the shortfall of Rs 49 crore against the targeted revenue, the Southern Railways managed an operating surplus of Rs 283 crore against the targeted operating surplus of Rs 274 crore.
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In 2002-03, income from passenger fares was higher at Rs 1,485 crore as against the target of Rs 1,468 crore. Income from freight movement, however, barely managed to meet the target set for the year. Against a target of Rs 1,066 crore, the Southern Railways managed to earn Rs 1,037 crore in the previous year.
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During 2002-03, the Southern Railways finalised a record number of 44 station-to-station rates with a committed traffic of 10.25 lakh tonnes and projected revenue earnings of Rs 31.50 crore. The number of rates quoted under this scheme is nearly 3.5 times over the last year
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V Anand, the GM of Southern Railways, said, “there has been a shortfall in foodgrain movement because of the drought. However, coal and cement picked up towards the end of the year.
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The new power plant near Virudhanagar uses coal from Neyveli Lignite and that has helped in the improved movement of coal.” “We expect volumes in freight to pick up and make up for the overall reduction in the freight rates,”Anand added.
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Freight rates, during the recent railway budget, were cut by 3 to 10 per cent. The budget also provided for graded concessions on short lead traffic, ranging from 10 to 50 per cent depending on the distance covered.
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Cut in the freight rates are already showing some encouraging results. The volume of freight moved up from 3.6 million tonnes in April-May last year to 3.8 million tonnes for the corresponding period of this year.
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