SWR passenger traffic up 11%

South Western Railway (SWR) general manager Kuldeep Chaturvedi has said that the SWR carried 128.9 million passengers during the first nine months of the current year, an increase Of 11.19 percent compared to the corresponding period last year.

Speaking to Business Standard he said inspite of the ban on iron ore exports, in freight loading, it carried 25.583 million tonnes. He said, in order to carry the ever increasing passenger traffic, three express trains and same number of passenger trains have been introduced on SWR during the current year and one express and two passenger trains will be introduced shortly.

Besides, he said the frequency of three trains has been increased, two trains have been extended and two pairs of trains are delinked to run as separate trains. Further to clear extra rush of passengers, SWR has run 4,468 special trains and attached 4,125 extra coaches to various trains during April,’10 to December, ’10. There has been no accident on account of collision or fire since inception of SWR in 2003.

He said, thrust was being given to improve infrastructure and line capacity on this railway. During the year, 44 km of track doubling on Bangalore-Mysore and Arsikere-Devanur section has already been completed. Further, 16 km of new line, between Kadur-Sakrayapatna section, 28 km of doubling between Mugad-Kambarganvi and Devanur-Birur section and 40 kms of gauge conversion between Anandapuram-Talaguppa section will also be completed in the present fiscal.

Chaturvedi said special emphasis is being given to bring a perceptible improvement in rail travel by improving security. In addition to this, an “integrated security scheme” is being provided at Bangalore City, Yesvantpur and Mysore stations.

The work on a new station building at Hubli has commenced and “Multifunctional Complexes” at Hubli and Mysore have also been planned and execution has already been started.