NF Railway income rises marginally

Northeast Frontier Railway has registered a marginal increase in its gross income at Rs 819.12 crore during the first quarter of 2015-16 financial year on account of rising revenue from passenger traffic.
"Our gross originating earnings has increased marginally to Rs 819.12 crore till June this year in comparison to Rs 816.88 crore during the same period last year," Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) General Manager R S Virdi said.
The passenger earnings in last quarter stood at Rs 388.56 crore, a rise of Rs 60.92 crore from the same period last year, he added.
Virdi, however, said it is a matter of concern that the income has fallen short of NFR's target of Rs 915.99 crore during the April-June quarter of the current fiscal.

The increase in passenger income was "offset by a considerable reduction in originating goods earnings due to fall in loading of coal, petroleum and other lubricants, bamboo and fertilizer", he added.
NFR had set an income target of Rs 4,264.75 crore for the entire 2015-16 financial year, which is about 16 per cent higher than the target for last fiscal.

Virdi said, "We have to muster all available resources to compensate this shortfall in freight loading and earnings in the remaining three quarters. The Operating Ratio has risen to 218.93 per cent, which merits immediate attention and greater effort to reduce our working expenditure."

On safety issues, he said it is NFR's one of the topmost priorities and because of enhanced stress on safety, train accidents have been reduced by 50 per cent as compared to the first quarter of the last financial year.
"We have organised a month-long course for training of our trainers on disaster management in June with participation of National Disaster Response Force. For mitigating the risk of fire hazards, we have modified fuse distribution boards of 112 non-AC coaches," he added.
Virdi also said fitness of tracks is an essential ingredient for ensuring safe running of trains.
"We have done CTR (Complete Track Renewal) of 32.08 km till July this year, which is 124 per cent more than our proportionate target. I am happy to say that all bridges of NF Railway will have steel channel sleepers by the end of the current financial year," he added.

"Continuing our effort for improving hygiene in rail journeys, 349 coaches have been retrofitted with bio toilets. Also, 39 important trains have been brought under coverage of 'On Board Housekeeping Service'," he added.