Source: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/indian-railways-shares-an-update-on-how-covid-impacted-railways-revenue-11639631338411.html
Publisher: LiveMint
Indian Railways had to face a huge loss due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In a written reply in Lok Sabha Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw informed that Indian Railways’ total traffic revenue decreased by   ₹34,145 crore compared to the previous year 2019-20.Â
This was mainly on account of the decrease in passenger and other coaching revenue by ₹35,421 crore and ₹2,544 crore respectively compared to the previous year. This decrease was partly offset by an increase in freight and sundry other revenues.
Earlier, The Minister of State for Railways was speaking at the foundation stone laying ceremony of an underbridge at the Jalna railway station.
“The passenger train segment always runs into losses. Since increasing the ticket fares affects the passengers, we cannot do so. During the pandemic, the Railways suffered losses of ₹36,000 crore,” he said.
“Only goods trains generate revenue. During the pandemic, these trains played an important role in carrying goods and providing relief to people,” he added.
The revenue shortfall, Piyush Goyal( former Railway Minister) earlier said in 2017-18 and 2018-2019, it was the “drop in originating passengers — in non-suburban segment — and drop in average sub-urban lead in actuals vis-a-vis the revised estimates, less loading in actuals vis-a-vis revised estimates (RE) and very low growth in other coaching revenue” that resulted in the shortfall.
He pointed out that remittance of dividend receipts from Railway PSUs to General Revenues, which hitherto used to be part of Railways’ sundry revenue and lesser mobilisation under land monetisation, also contributed to the shortfall.
For the year 2019-20 and 2020-21, Goyal attributed the shortfall in revenue to the “adverse” impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent suspension of railway operations.
He said the refund adjustment of over ₹2,000 crore in sundry revenue to the Rail Land Development Authority and the complete shutdown of operations also contributed to the shortfall in revenue.
