RAIPUR: Owing to the coronavirus induced lockdown that brought everything to a halt, the South-East Central Railways (SECR) covering the Chhattisgarh region and extending up to Nagpur, has earned revenue profit from unconventional source comprised of scrap materials.
The nation’s most money-spinning railways zone SECR suffered a monthly loss of over Rs 100 crore from April to June with the cancellation of all regular passenger trains during the nationwide lockdown even as the receipts from the freight loading continues to move at a sluggish pace.
“SECR has augmented the earning by Rs 34 crore through the disposal of various scrap materials during the lockdown period. The majority of the scraps were heavy redundant lines and sidings which were not operational and lying abandoned. We have set the target to use the existing situation in turning the Zone comprising of three divisions of Bilaspur, Raipur and Nagpur as scrap free”, said Saket Ranjan, chief public relations officer (SECR).
Besides raising the earning through the disposal of all scraps that included old wheels, discarded rails, axles, parts of wagons-coaches among other objects, the move will equally help in paving the way for a cleaner and greener environment by recycling such discarded stock materials, the SECR officials opined.
According to the principal chief materials manager (SECR) PKB Meshram, all the sales were conducted online through the e-Auction module of Integrated Railway e-Procurement Systems (IREPS).
“The e-auction remains a continuous process where the scrap purchasers participated from across the country without any human interface," he added.
The earnings of railways been badly affected in the SECR due to sub-optimal utilisation of passenger and freight trains services. The railway officials feared that the zone likely to face the worst operating profit during the current fiscal year owing to the lockdown and Covid-19 outbreak.