SCR urged to boost freight loading

Ajay Shukla, a member of the Railway Board, made a visit to South Central Railway (SCR) and held a meeting with general manager PK Srivastava, principal heads of the departments and divisional railway managers of SCR at Rail Nilayam on Saturday.Issues related to freight loading, faster mobility of freight rakes, safety and security, revenue generation and strategies to meet freight loading targets, increasing speed in railway sidings, speeding up completion of traffic facility works, etc, were discussed.

Ajay Shukla wanted the zone to chalk out a comprehensive strategy towards attaining the freight loading target of 128 million tonnes set for 2015-16. “Towards this, every effort should be made to draw up freight loading priorities and facilitate faster mobility, which will also enable the SCR to earn customer satisfaction for the zone,” Ajay said.

He stressed on the expected jump in coal loading, in view of the fact that issues pertaining to coal blocks have been cleared and the government has chalked a plan to provide 24x7 power supply all over the country in the next four years. Towards this, a comprehensive plan can be formulated in terms of initiating systemic improvements and innovative measures in the areas of wagon movement by curtailing equipment failure like signal failure, hot axle, train parting, rail fracture, loco failure, etc.

PK Srivastava stated that SCR is committed to live up to the expectations of the Railway Board in terms of its performance including in freight loading. The general manager added that the SCR is geared to handle the anticipated growth in this area. He informed that member traffic that Singareni Collieries, cement industry and the ports of Krishnapatnam and Kakinada are contributing a sizeable share of freight traffic and every initiative will be made towards handling the traffic demands from these hubs.