Northeast Frontier Railway suffered huge losses in the recent wave of flood

GUWAHATI: The recent wave of flood has resulted in huge financial losses to Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR). NFR has incurred substantial losses due to damage to railway track and assets, and suspension of traffic, during the unprecedented flood in Bihar and West Bengal last month with Katihar Division bearing majority of the brunt.

Chief public relations officer, P.J.Sharma stated around Rs. 45 crore has been spent on repairing track and bridges in Katihar division alone, while the total cost of repairing has roughly been estimated at Rs. 63 crore.

“In Alipurduar Division, a bridge is being rebuilt between Fakiragram – Dhubri section at a cost of about Rs. 8.7 crore. On the commercial front, the loss (estimated till 11-09-2017) is more than Rs. 209 crore with refund to passengers for cancelled train accounting for about Rs. 44 crore.”

He added that a total of 1576 trips of mail /express trains and 1004 trips of passenger trains have been cancelled since first week of August 2017. Loss due to damage to other assets signal and telecommunication equipment etc are still being worked out.