There has been a drop of around 35 per cent in the freight earnings of Palakkad Railway Division in 2010-11.

The revenue from freight movements during the year was Rs 166.58 crore as against Rs 275.78 crore in 2009-10.

The fall in revenue has been attributed to the division not receiving the anticipated volume of iron ore, fertilisers and limestone consignments from the Mangalore region. But the decline in earnings had been made good to an extent by revenue from other sectors.

The overall earnings of the division during the year stood at Rs 560.20 crore, which was 8.83 per cent lesser than the revenue of Rs 614.48 crore recorded in 2009-10.

Revenue from passenger movements was Rs 352.31 crore, which was 15.7 per cent higher than the earnings in the previous year. Revenue from parcel and penalties was Rs 16.72 crore, according to officials of the division.

They said that the division maintained 94.1 per cent punctuality in the running of mail and express trains and 93.5 per cent punctuality in the case of passenger trains.

The division serves eight districts spread across Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. The division is running an average of 75 mail and express trains and 49 passenger trains, carrying 1.90 lakh passengers a day.

Mr S.K. Raina, Divisional Railway Manager, said that four passenger reservation centres would be opened in north Kerala soon. There are 42 computerised reservation centres now, including two non-rail head centres at Kalpetta and Malappuram, in the division.

He said that the Railways had created annual travel facility for an additional 40 lakh passengers in the division by introducing five pairs of trains, increasing the frequency of two pairs and augmentation of coaches on 36 trains. Besides, the division extended the services of two pairs of trains and introduced stops for 39 trains at 17 stations.

An integrated security scheme will be introduced at Mangalore Central and Kozhikode at Rs 7.06 crore, added Mr Raina.

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