East Coast Railway has recorded a growth in freight movement compared to the pevious year besides being the "lone zone" in Indian Railways to register a positive growth in passenger traffic.
FromApriltoSeptember of the current fiscal, the zone hascarried47.49millionpassengersby registeringagrowthof5 per cent, Rajiv Vishnoi, general manager of ECoR, said.
The zone carried 83.77 MT originating freight from ApriltoSeptember2015 against 77.82 MT in the corresponding period last year, recording a growth of 7.13 per cent more than the previous year.
ECoR also decided to install wi-fi facility at Bhubaneswar railway station in January, 2016. The facility would be extended to 28 railway stations under ECoR in a phased manner covering all the stations by 2016 end.
Cuttack, Sambalpur, Balasore, Bhadrak, Rayagada, Jajpur-Keonjhar Road and Khurda Road will be among the major stations to provide Wi-Fi services to the passengers, a ECoR release said.
The facility would provide high-speed connectivity to passengers on the existing model as a free service for the first 30 minutes after which it would be chargeable.
This apart, the ECoR has set a target to complete RajsunakhalatoBolagarh line byJune,2016, Bolagarh to Nayagarh byMarch,2017 and work from Balangir side till Bhanisapalli would begin this year.
Bhubaneswar- Rameswar express will run with 100 per cent bio-toilets by November, 2015.
The ECoR has provided e-catering service in 70 trains and 24x7 help line number 138 (for queries/complaints related coachmaintenance&linen);toll-freenumber182forpassenger securityrelatedcomplaints, they said.
As many as 57 Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) withsmartcardandcurrencyoptionshavebeeninstalledover thisrailwayandarefunctional.
Besides, the ECoR has WaterVendingMachine in 104 locationsin 24stations.
