North East News Agency

The North East Frontier Railway (NFR) has initiated a number of measures to improve railway services in the region. This was disclosed at the NFR headquarters in Guwahati by A. K. Sawalka, General Manager of NER. There is an out and out attempt to decongest Guwahati, the railway hub of the whole region. Seeing the immense pressure on Guwahati, a second terminal station is being developed at Kamakhya. Huge work is already going on there. Rs. 22 crore would be spent in the first phase of the project. This is in addition to the Rs. six crore worth of works that is already undertaken. Once the station is ready, many new trains may originate /terminate here instead of the main Guwahati station. The work on the Kamakhya terminal is expected to be completed by 2008.

There are also major plans for improving amenities at the Guwahati station and its surroundings. Rs. 16 crore has already been spent in development work at Guwahati station and work for Rs. two crore is currently underway. In addition to this, another Rs. 10.35 crore would be spent. Apart from decongestion of passenger traffic, stations like Azara and Changsari near Guwahati are being developed as major goods terminal to reduce traffic on New Guwahati Rly Yard. These terminals are already operational and further four crore is being spent for expansion works.

“2006 being declared the year of the passengers, we are trying to improve passenger services to make journeys smooth and comfortable,” said Sawalka. As part of the overall drive to improve services, five stations under each division have been picked up for up gradation. There are 24 such stations under NFR where work is going on in war footing. This will take at least 18 months more to get completed. Rs. 1.5 crore would be spent in each of these stations.

It was revealed that there is now no restriction of goods movement under the enhanced goods train handling facility at NFR. Handling of passenger traffic has and is still vastly improving by which NFR is now ready to welcome under number of new trains. Work on the tracks (laying double tracks, conversion from metre to broad gauge etc.) is believed to have brought about this great change. The introduction of the Passenger Profile Management System has also greatly improved management of passenger load. It is on the basis of the system that additional coaches are added to trains to clear the rush. In 2005-06, 650 coaches were added (huge up from the figure of 321 coaches in 2004-05) to trains under NFR and 162 special trains were made to run from 96 in 2004-05.

The new train schedules have come to effect from July this year. Many trains will now move become faster with traveling time greatly reduced. A total of 53 trains running in all directions from NFR will now travel faster. The GM said that this operation has been made possible by rationalizing operations without curtailing halts. Few trains have been upgraded to super fast status, new trains have been introduced, and some significant extensions have been made while a few trains have been augmented with extra coaches from this July. Frequencies of a few important trains have been increased and new arrival/departure time has come for a number of trains from this July. The GM also announced with pride that the overall performance of NFR in 2005-06 has been great with growth of 26 per cent passengers, 19 per cent growth in good loading and a whopping 21 per cent growth in total earning. This is one of the best recorded in 05-06 amongst the 16 rail zones all over the country. NFR has now 75 Passenger Reservation System (PRS) centres in the region and 45 more will be added.  All district headquarters in the region will have PRS’s. A PRS will be opened in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh in July.

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