The 86-kilometre Shoranur- Kozhikode railway electrification will be commissioned soon, Divisional Railway Manager (Palakkad) Anand Prakash has said.
At a meeting of Divisional Railway Users’ Consultative Committee (DRUCC) of Palghat Division at the Cosmopolitan Club here on Monday, Mr. Prakash said the electrification of the remaining stretch between Kozhikode and Kannur was progressing well and was likely to be completed by March 2015.
Mr. Prakash, who is also the chairman of the newly constituted DRUCC, said the completion of yard remodelling work at Shoranur Junction was one of the major achievements of the division in the recent years.
The division earned a total of Rs.859.42 crore from April 2013 to January 2014. This was 18.56 per cent more than what was registered during the previous year, the DRM said. Regarding punctuality , the division had achieved 96.1 per cent punctuality for mail/ express trains and 96.8 per cent for passenger trains, he said. “As many as 129 mini shelters have been constructed and 20 more such shelters are nearing completion at various railway stations across the region,” said Mr. Prakash, who recently took charge as the DRM.
The division spent Rs.10.56 crore towards development of passenger amenities, while over Rs.60 crore on various development works were in progress. Besides, many novel concepts had been introduced, keeping in view customer satisfaction and passenger safety.
Later, participating in a face-to-face programme organised by the Calicut Chamber of Commerce and Industry , Mohan A. Menon, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, said the railway was contemplating different measures, including deployment of a women contingent as security officers in the trains, repositioning of the women’s compartment to the middle of the train , and improvement of platform lighting across stations in the region.
