Railway minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday asked top officials and general managers of zonal railways to aggressively work towards meeting the revenue target of Rs 88,355.91 crore projected in the revised estimates for the current financial year.

Banerjee was apparently peeved with the fact that both passenger and freight revenues fell short by over 10.58 per cent with just few days left for completion of the financial year. She pointed to slippages in the collections.

Railways managed passenger and freight earnings of Rs 77,315 crore in first eleven months – April 2009 – February 2010 thereby leaving a huge gap to be fulfilled in the current month alone.

In the freight segment, railways earnings were reported to be Rs 52,313 crore during first eleven months of current financial year. This accounts for 90 per cent of the targeted Rs 58,715.66 crore for the entire year that Mamta Banerjee has taken credit for in the revised estimates she presented to Parliament. In 2008-09 railways earned Rs 53,433 crore from their freight loading.

Passenger earnings were also not up to the mark if one were to take into consideration the performance in first eleven months at Rs 21,023 crore. This is against targeted Rs 24,057.03 crore that Mamta Banjerjee has projected in revised estimates for 2009-10. The first eleven months performance is about the same as Rs 21,931crore earnedin 2008-09.

“The minister has told the general mangers that from now onwards she herself would monitor their performance,” a railway ministry official, who was present at the GMs meeting on Wednesday, said.

Interestingly enough even coach earnings also dipped significantly to Rs 1,997 crore for first eleven months. Budget documents reveal that Mamta Banerjee has projected total coach earnings of Rs 2526.23 crore for the entire financial year.

Sundry earnings on which the railway minister had hoped to make were not up to mark either. As against revised target of Rs 2981.99 crore for the entire financial year, Railways managed to mop up just Rs 1980.94 crore in first eleven months, leaving a gap of over 30 per cent to be filled in during this month.