Covid brings down Northeast Frontier Railway revenue by 70%

GUWAHATI: The ongoing pandemic has hit revenue earnings of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) as train travel came down heavily for fear of the virus. From April last year to January this year, the NFR revenue has dipped by almost 70%.
Sources at NFR said from April last year to January 2021, Rs 380.73 crore was earned from ticket sales, while the year before during the same period the sale was around Rs 1,463.38 crore.
Overall, data revealed at a news conference by NFR general manager Anshul Gupta on Saturday, stated that from the traffic originating from the NFR zone, railways had earned Rs 2,740.71 crore up to January 2020 (from April 2019). However, the earnings plummeted to Rs 1,353.47 crore between April 2020 and January 2021. This includes freight charges for goods and sundry other things as well as other coach services.
From goods, the earnings stood at Rs 772.76 crore (April 2020-January 2021), whereas the same was Rs 954.33 crore in April 2019-January 2020. This comparative deficit was, however, 19.03% as the railways earned some revenue from goods imported to the region amid the Covid crisis and subsequent lockdown. The overall deficit in revenue from traffic originating from NFR’s jurisdiction, declined by 50.62%.
The Freight Business Development (FBD) portal, which is a one stop solution for freight and parcel customers and various other initiatives taken for providing optimized logistic services to freight customers, Gupta informed that out of 75 goods sheds in NE, 15 are already working 24x7.
Gupta said the introduction of Kisan rail has helped farmers send their produce to markets in far off areas. Refrigerated parcel vans to carry pineapples and other fruits and vegetables from NE to other parts of the country are also available for booking. “Farmers of NE can now send tea, rubber, turmeric, black pepper, mustard, soya bean, betel nut, mandarin, pineapple, ginger, kiwi, litchi, passion fruit, chillies (green), large cardamom and other perishable products to other market by using the services of Kisan rail. A 50% subsidy is allowed for transportation of all fruits and vegetables through these trains,” Gupta added.
The GM said due to the increased emphasis on freight movement owing to Covid, 9,361 freight carrying rakes were unloaded till January 21 from April 2020. The average speed of goods carrying trains also increased to 47kmph from 27 kmph due to various measures taken, he said.