The Palakkad division of Southern Railway has handled 4.8 million tonnes of freight traffic during the first nine months of 2015-16, according to Anand Prakash, Divisional Railway Manager of Palakkad.
A press release by the division said here on Wednesday that he was speaking at the Republic Day celebrations in Palakkad on Tuesday.
In his speech, Prakash said that the division carried 5.8 crore passengers and transported 4.8 million tonnes of freight during April-December of 2015-16.
Gross earnings of the division amounted to ₹865.50 crore during this period. Of this, earnings from passenger traffic stood at ₹530.49 crore and goods traffic at ₹280.74 crore.
The prospect of loading petcoke at Mangaluru area is likely to provide a boost to the freight traffic, it said.
Sundry earnings of the division stood at ₹25.12 crore, and earnings from other coaching was at ₹32.4 crore during the period.
The division achieved punctuality of 88.1 per cent for mail and express trains, and 89.1 per cent for passenger trains during the first three quarters of 2015-16.
The release said that the two passenger lifts have been commissioned at Mangaluru Central railway station. Work on the installation of two escalators at Mangaluru Central will be completed by the middle of February, it added.