Madurai railway division has recorded the highest growth of 23.04% from goods traffic during the current financial year.
Hoisting the tricolour on the divisional office premises here on the occasion of 74th Independence Day, Divisional Railway Manager V.R. Lenin said the division earned ₹71.56 crore from goods traffic this fiscal as against ₹ 58.16 crore during the corresponding period last year. “This is the highest ever goods earning of this period,” he said.
The division took up continuous freight operations despite the lockdown, loading 0.5802 million tonnes as against the last year’s 0.3660 million tonnes, recording a growth of 58.5%.
Similarly, the division unloaded 0.9190 million tonnes against the last year’s 0.8818 million tonnes (+4.2%).
As many as 12,661 parcels were booked with a tonnage of 503.94 fetching earnings of ₹11.52 lakh during April-July. The sundry and other earnings also increased by 9.29 %.
The average speed of goods trains till July this year was 40.9 kmph against 24.4 kmph for 2019-20 showing an improvement of 67.6%, the DRM said.
However, passenger revenue in the division was under tremendous stress as passenger train services were cancelled during the lockdown.
A total of 1.52 lakh passengers cancelled their bookings and ₹6.70 crore had been refunded till July. Apart from Shramik specials, the division ran 174 parcel and 112 special trains.
The employees of Madurai division contributed ₹95 lakh for PMCARES fund in April. Additional Divisional Railway Managers Lalit Kumar Mansukhani and O.P.Shaw and Divisional Security Commissioner V.J.P. Anbarasu were present.
