With commissioning of 19 km Butibori-Sindhi section on Nagpur-Sewagram route, Central Railway's Nagpur Division is confident of meeting the loading target for 2020-21 notwithstanding the set back suffered due to COVID-19 outbreak. Disclosing this during maiden media interaction on Friday held at DRM office, Richa Khare, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), said the corridor is heavily congested and addition of fourth line would provide much needed cushion to ply more trains, goods as well as passenger in future.

 

Last year third line on the same route of 19 kms was also commissioned providing much needed push for new services as the 74 kms of Nagpur-Sewagram section of division is common to Grand Trunk and also Mumbai-Howrah rail routes of the country. As to overall performance, she said total earnings has reached Rs. 1775 crores, it includes Rs. 1737 from Commercial transport and Rs. 38 crores on sundry earnings, and specifically mentioned the impressive performance of Parcel Department, they propelled division to national map and also brought name and fame and much needed revenue. About 6,000 tonnes of orange was transported through 23 Kisan Special by parcel department and earnings from single commodity has crossed Rs. two crores.

 

"Yes, pandemic has bled the division as earnings nose dived due to general slowdown as loading was affected to a large extent. But now we have bounced back against backdrop of improvement in economy and confident of meeting the revised target of 2020-21 and may also achieve last year loading figures", the DRM mentioned. During the same period till December end in year 2019-20 the earnings of division had stood at Rs. 2688 crores.

 

The suspension of long distance passenger trains did affect the overall earnings and performance but during the time the speed of freight trains increased to 40 km/hr from earlier 21 kms. Though punctuality of trains increased the performance efficiency index (PEI) of division stands at 50 per cent. However on positive side freight loading during November and December, 3.04 metric tonnes and 3.2 metric tonnes respectively and these figures was close to last year indicating a positive turn around, pointed out Sumeet Badarke, Divisional Operations Manager (DoM) while replying to a querry.

 

As to increasing section speed to 130 km in Nagpur Division, it was mentioned that around six months period would be required for upgradation of various facilities that of Engineering, Signal and Telecom as well as Electrical. Explaining the rationale, Pawan Patil, Sr. Division Engineer (Co-ord), said that sometimes back RDSO had run its special train and listed some measures to division for increasing maximum permissible speed to 130 km/hr.

 

Asked about the priorities for the next two years, Khare mentioned that focus remains on finding new routes and catering to increased coal traffic that remains the major earnings source for division. The Business Development Unit (BDU) is trying to add new commodities to its basket for transportation.

 

The DRM said the COVID-19 has cast its shadow on improvement projects undertaken by Railways through surplus funds and this has affected some ongoing works in division also. Also the revision in commissioning targets would also put pressure on repayment and further burden the earnings. Since even achieving target looks difficult due to pandemic situation, the target now is safety first.

 

Anup Satpathy, Additional Divisional Railway Manager (Traffic), Krishnath Patil, Sr. Divisional Commercial Manager (Sr. DCM), Gautam Kumar, Dy. CE (Const.), Vipul Suskar, Divisional Commercial Manager (DCM), S G Rao, Assistant Commercial Manager (Goods) and PRO, were also present at the media interaction.

 

 

 

Remodelling of Nagpur Railway Station yard is planned along side integration of 3rd and 4th line of Sewagram-Nagpur route. “It is going to be a major exercise as platform no. 2 and 3 would also be widened and then only construction of new foot overbridge (FoB) planned for seamless connectivity is going to progress ahead”, said Pawan Patil, Sr. Divisional Engineer (Co-ord). The FoB project was sanctioned three years back and construction was started but stopped midway due to less width of platform no. 2 and 3 as Patil said the landing as per approved plan design faced problem.

 

Yard remodelling is a major exercise and same is being executed keeping in mind future requirements of train operations and would not have any issues when Nagpur station is handed over to private developer, he state in reply to a querry. During the remodelling, even signal points would need to be adjusted and this is quite a critical work and even OHE alignment would be shifted to adjust space of poles. Entire project would require substantial funds and given the current state of railway finances it would be quite some time before Board nod is received for the same.