Earnings - Comptroller and Auditor General of India

Report No.6 of 2006 (Railways)of Rs.8.79 crore during 2002-03 to 2004-05 due to non-revision of minimumweight condition.The matter was taken up with the Railway Board in June 2005. RailwayBoard in their reply have stated (August 2005) that revision of minimumweight condition (MWC) is under consideration and no loss is involved inmoving banana traffic since the BCN/BCX wagons return empty fromBhusawal division to stations on Northern Railway and New Delhi area. Onthe contrary Railways have been getting around 4 lakh tonne of banana trafficgenerating an earning of Rs.30 crore per annum.The Railway Board has accepted the need for revision of MWC to reducelosses to Railways on this account, as pointed out by Audit. Railway Board’sremarks that BCN/BCX wagons return empty from Bhusawal division andusing them for banana traffic is advantageous, even if on concessional rates,have to be appreciated in the light of the fact that the Commercial Directorateitself has been supporting reduction in concession and it is expected that thisfactor would have been taken into account by the Commercial Directorate.2.1.3 South Western: Loss of earning capacity due to under-Railwayutilisation of Diesel Electric Multiple UnitservicesIntroduction of Diesel Electric Multiple Unit services in two sections on SouthWestern Railway, without assessing the needs for commuter traffic, resulted inunder-utilisation of assets (Rs.17.76 crore) and loss of earning capacity(Rs.0.67 crore)Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) rakes are preferred over conventionallocal trains for commuter traffic in view of fast acceleration/ deceleration andoperation on single lines since there is no engine turn round. These servicesare to be introduced where frequent up and down movement of trains in thesection is required on sections upto 160 Kms. or where the run is of not morethan four hours. DEMU rakes can carry almost one and a half times thepassengers which comparable passenger trains can carry.On a request made by a former Minister for Railways, South Western Railwayintroduced DEMU services (December 2003) in Bangalore city (SBC) –Chikballapur (CBP) and SBC-Whitefield (WFD) sections. No record inrespect of traffic survey or cost benefit analysis conducted prior tointroduction of these services was available with Railway Administration.Initially the services were introduced with 8 coaches but the composition waschanged subsequently to four coaches in view of poor occupancy. The servicebetween SBC and WFD was later extended upto Malur (MLO) from February2004. Despite these measures, the average occupancy of the services was 5 percent to 40 per cent only (April 2004) and after an analysis of these servicesover four months, the Railway Administration concluded that enoughsuburban traffic for operation of DEMU rakes did not exist. A review of theoccupancy position of the above services for the period from December 2003to October 2004 indicated that the occupancy was only 15.91 per cent for the24