Southern Railway revenues up 12%

With passenger earnings contributing a major share, the total revenues of Southern Railway (SR) grew 12 per cent to Rs 705 crore during the first quarter of this fiscal as compared with Rs 627 crore in the same period last year.

Passenger earnings continued to show impressive growth while revenues from freight traffic posted modest growth during the April-June quarter of this fiscal.

Earnings from the passenger segment stood at Rs 425 crore, up 21 per cent over Rs 351 crore in the same period previous fiscal, said Thomas Varghese, general manager, Southern Railway, addressing a press conference.

Earnings from freight traffic was Rs 237 crore as against Rs 230 crore posted during the April-June quarter of the previous fiscal. Ticket checking earnings grew to Rs 2.7 crore from Rs 2.2 crore.

Varghese said freight earnings did not increase considerably as loading didn't pick up during the first quarter. During the first quarter (till June 20), passenger traffic was up 7 per cent to 130 million from 121 million in the same period last year.

He said SR was planning to introduce seven new trains during the year. New services include bi-weekly Kochuveli (Thiruvananthapuram)-Lokmanya Tilak (Mumbai) Garib Rath, a daily Chennai Egmore-Nagore Express and Bhubaneswar-Rameswaram weekly express.

The other new trains include Chennai Egmore-Rameswaram Express (six days a week), Coimbatore-Nagercoil daily express, Yesvantpur-Chennai Central weekly express and Mayiladuthurai-Tiruchirappalli daily express.

SR is also planning to increase frequency of five trains and convert two express trains into super-fast trains.On extending the mass rapid transit system to Velachery (at present between Chennai Beach and Tiruvanmiyur), Varghese said SR was awaiting clearance from the Commissioner of Railway Safety for inspection of the extended line.