The strike by State government electricity employees affected 75 per cent of the earnings of Vijayawada Division of South Central Railway and a longer agitation would have dealt a crippling blow to this vibrant division.
On normal days Vijayawada Division earns Rs.7 crore to Rs.8 crore daily from freight services and Rs.1.5 crore to Rs.2 crore from passengers, but they came down by almost 75 per cent during peak days of the strike, according to Divisional Railway Manager Pradeep Kumar.
Goods trains bore the brunt of the strike as priority had to be given to running passenger trains without inordinate delays. The consumption of electricity was 56.48 million units in September and it fell to 52.58 million units in October. The figures might not reflect the ground reality but the electricity and other line departments had to struggle hard to manage the show by running passenger trains at the expense of goods trains whose electricity consumption is several times larger.
Mr. Pradeep Kumar said that the SCR had 14 132 KV sub-stations powering the huge traction network.
