The South Central Railways (SCR) is anticipated a loss of over Rs 3,000 crore during this financial year just from passenger services. The Railway Zone has already recorded a 30 per cent loss in freight service.
While the resumption of MMTS services still hangs in the balance, SCR GM Gajanan Mallya said the division is working towards plans for resumption of services by researching passenger patterns and the possibility of controlling crowds via CCTV cameras. SCR, however, has noticed a spike in freight services in the month of September for the financial year 2020-21 in comparison to 2019-20.
Speaking to the press in a virtual conference, Mallya said, “SCR earns an annual revenue of Rs 4,000-5,000 crore from passenger services. This year, we have estimated a revenue of Rs 1,000 crore. The revenue from freight services is lower by 30 per cent as compared to last year. However, in September, we have seen the trend pick up and are hoping that we recover the revenue from freight services by the end of the year.”
The GM pointed out that South Central Railway stood first amongst Indian Railways in track maintenance works. The average speed of the freight trains was enhanced from 24 kmph to 51 kmph as there was negligible passenger train traffic.
The Zone commissioned a total of 89 km of new lines, 41 km of doubling and 44 km of gauge conversion works. In Telangana region, 43 km of new lines and 30 km of doubling has been commissioned. The zone achieved the third-highest parcel loading across Indian Railways. It also operated 158 parcel special trains and transported around 39,000 tonnes of various commodities.
After a brief slowdown during the initial months of the current financial year, loading this has seen an upswing. Barring coal, loading of all other commodities including cement, food grains, fertilisers, granite, etc., recorded much higher quantities this month, compared to September, 2019.