Railways-owned companies earning profit: Banerjee - News

Public sector undertakings (PSUs) under the railway ministry are profitable and have posted a combined net profit of Rs.1,950 crore ($406 million) in 2007-08, Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee said here Friday.

Presenting her ministry's budget for the current fiscal in the Lok Sabha, she said: "During 2007-08 all the 10 PSUs under the administrative control of the ministry of railways have performed well and achieved a combined turnover of Rs.11,880 crore and earned a net profit of Rs.1,950 crore."

The companies paid a combined dividend of Rs.261 crore to the railways during the year, the minister said.

The coach factories in Chennai and Karpurtala in Punjab rolled out 1,337 and 1,558 coaches respectively last fiscal.

The Chennai factory has set a target of 1,433 coaches for 2009-10, while the Karpurtala unit expects to roll out 1,562 coaches during the year.

The two locomotive units - Diesel Locomotive Works in Varanasi and Chittaranjan Locomotive Works - manufactured 257 units and 220 units respectively last fiscal, while the Bangalore-based Rail Wheel Factory produced 196,261 wheels, up by 35 percent from 2007-08.

The wheel factory is planning to further up its production to 200,000 units this fiscal.

Banerjee said, a business plan to improve the overall efficiency and reduce unit costs of the plants in Golden Rock, Tiruchirapalli, Parel, Ajmer and Kharagpur would be drawn up.

Referring to the high demand for electric multiple unit (EMU) trains and Metro coaches in the country, Banerjee has proposed to set up a new plant at the Kanchrapara-Halisahar Railway complex in West Bengal under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

The proposed plant will roll out 500 coaches a year.

The minister added that the printing presses owned by the railways had been neglected for a long time.

If the printing units situated in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai were modernised, they would become cost-effective and pave the way for commercial development, she said.

vj/sj/vt

( 327 Words)

2009-07-03-18:54:17 (IANS)

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