Railways today said it has registered a shortfall of over Rs 1,900 crore in earnings till October this fiscal due to various factors like traffic disruptions by agitations and fog and restriction on mining activities in some states.

"...However there is a shortfall in earnings realisation as compared to the target by Rs 1,997 crore to end of October 2011," Minister of State for Railways K H Muniyappa said.

He attributed the shortfall to factors such as "dislocation of traffic due to bandh, agitations, fog and restrictions on mining of iron-ore in certain states."

With the public transporter facing rising expenditure over the years, the Minister said there is a constant endeavour to avoid "wasteful expenditure" and control the growth of non-plan expenditure.

The steps taken include prioritisation of expenditure on works for better use of available resources, improvement in inventory management, optimising fuel consumption and tight control over expenditure in areas such as contractual payment and overtime allowances.

Non-plan expenditure of the organisation was 72,484 crore in 2008-09 fiscal and it went up to 90,334 crore in 2010-11.

During the ongoing financial year, non-plan expenditure till October stood at 58,717 crore, the Minister said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.