Date:30/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/05/30/stories/2006053003280700.htm

Back East Coast Rly earnings rise

Our Bureau

Bhubaneswar , May 29

East Coast Railway has been adjudged the second best railway in the country for its performance during 2005-06, the General Manager, Mr Narendra Kumar Goel, told presspersons here on Monday.

The earnings in 2005-06 had increased to Rs 3,947.29 crore from Rs 3,312.71 crore in 2004-05, Mr Goel said. In goods earning, the Railway stood first as it ran as many as 692 special trains during the year against 78 in the previous financial year. Mr Goel said that in order to help East Coast Railway complete the ongoing projects and augment other facilities for the benefit of the rail users, the Centre has allocated Rs 1,077.2 crore for 2006-07 against Rs 723.4 crore in the previous fiscal.

New trains

He further informed that East Coast Railway would introduce five new trains and extend six trains to different places during the current financial year. Besides, 16 trains will be speeded up making them super fast and 22 trains will be augmented up to 23/24 coaches during the year. The five new trains to be introduced are between Puri-Howrah-Puri Bi-weekly Express, Bhubaneswar-Baripada-Bhubaneswar Tri-weekly Express, Bhubaneswar-Pondicherry Weekly Express, Visakhapatnam-Nizamabad Bi-weekly Express, and Tata-Yeshvantpur Weekly Express.

The six trains that would be extended are 8473/8474 Puri-Jaipur Weekly Express to Jodhpur, 8563/8564 Visakhapatnam-Bangalore Prasanti Express to Bhubaneswar, 8507/8508 Visakhapatnam-Nizamuddin Hirakud Express to Amritsar, 8305/8306 Sambalpur-Raipur Express to Bhubaneswar, 211/212 Puri-Sambalpur Passenger to Rourkela and 7227/7228 Vijayawada-Vasco Amravati Express to Howrah.