Railway Board Chairman and CEO V.K. Yadav on Thursday said the Railways plans to introduce about 200 more special passenger trains between October 15 and November 30 to cater to the festive season demand.
“We have conducted meetings with the general managers of zones and instructed them to speak with local administration and review the COVID-19 situation. They have been asked to give us a report after which we will decide how many trains can be introduced during the holiday season,” Mr. Yadav said, adding that as of now, the estimate is that Railways may run around 200 trains, but this number could go up.
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While the operation of normal time-tabled trains remain suspended since March 22, the Railways has been gradually restarting passenger services and is currently running about 310 passenger trains across the country.
“As far as passenger trains are concerned, the situation now is that we will analyse the requirements of trains, the traffic patterns and corona status on a daily basis. Wherever there is a need, we will run trains,” he said.
Freight revenues up
The Railways on Thursday said its revenue from freight operations in September grew 13.54% over the year-ago month in spite of the COVID-19 related challenges, terming it a “remarkable turnaround”.
“In September 2020, Indian Railways earned ₹9,896.86 crore from freight loading, which is ₹1,180.57 crore higher than last year’s earnings for the same period (₹8,716.29 crore). The increase in freight revenue is 13.54%,” the Railways said in a statement.
Noting that trends in freight traffic reflect the broad trends of turnaround in economic activities as well, the Railways added that last month, freight loading stood at 102.12 million tonnes, 15.35% higher than 88.53 million tonnes in September 2019.
The freight basket for last month included 42.89 million tonnes of coal, 13.53 million tonnes of iron ore, 6.3 million tonnes of foodgrains, 5.34 million tonnes of fertilizers, 6.05 million tonnes of cement (excluding clinker), 3.85 million tonnes of clinker, and 3.52 million tonnes of mineral oil.
