During the last four months during the current financial year, Varanasi Division of North Eastern Railway (NER) has registered a rise of 28.60 per cent in passengers’ flow around 1.59 crore people travelled by trains in this period, informed the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Vineet Kumar Srivastava while addressing the Independence Day programme at Railway Stadium here on Tuesday. Srivastava said that during this period this NER division has earned Rs 387.87 crore from passenger traffic, which is 21.77 per cent more than the same period last year.
Similarly, the division has earned 4.25 crore from other sources, a rise of 4.67 per cent, he said, adding that by July last, total railway revenue of Rs 15.09 crore has been received from the passengers travelling in trains caught without tickets and irregular tickets apart from carrying without booked luggage.
“Till July in the current financial year, Rs 428.07 crore has been received as gross revenue, including Rs 409.59 crore from coaching, Rs 14.22 crore from goods traffic and Rs 4.25 crore from sundry income,” said Srivastava.
According to him, in order to hoist the national flag at 75 busiest stations of Indian Railways to express loyalty to the unity and integrity of the country, so far 100 feet high national flags have been hoisted at 12 stations of Varanasi Division (NER).
“It is a matter of pride for us that under Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, the foundation stone for the redevelopment of 508 stations of Indian Railways including five stations of Varanasi Division was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi through remote video conferencing recently,” he said, adding that prior to that the PM had laid the foundation stone of railway projects worth more than Rs 8,200 crore at a function organised in Wajidpur in Varanasi.
The DRM said that by changing the terminal of seven pairs of trains from Varanasi Junction (Cantt) railway station of Northern Railway (NR), these trains are now being run from Banaras station and two pairs of trains from Varanasi City of NER. In the recent months, LHB rakes have been added to three pairs of trains and with this, a total of 21 mail/express and superfast trains equipped with modern technology with provision of rakes LHB coaches in this division of NER, he added.