Railways earnings up 11.9% for first quarter

The first quarter revenue earnings of the Indian Railways have finally brought some good news for the controversy-struck ministry. There has been an increase of 12 per cent in its revenue earnings from April to June 2013 as compared to the same period last year. The revenue earnings have increased by Rs 3,570 crore.

Goods earnings have marked an increase of 9.3 per cent, increasing the revenue share by Rs 1,983 crore. Passenger revenue earnings have gone up by 16.92 per cent with a revenue increase of Rs 1,263 crore. The highest increase in earnings is from other coaching facilities, with an increase of 36 per cent with a marginal share of Rs 269 crore in revenue share.

While passenger earnings have gone up, the number of passengers has shown a decrease of 0.6 per cent as compared to last year. Recently, the Indian Railways had also registered an increase in revenue earning freight traffic by 7.5 million tonnes for April-May 2013, registering an increase of 4.5 per cent.

The increase in passenger revenue could be attributed to the increase in tatkal, cancellation and clerkage charges, along with hike in charges for super fast trains which was revised in January and came into effect from April.

During the same time Indian Railways also hiked the freight charges by 5.7 percent. The budget target of freight earnings have been set at Rs 93,554 crore with an expected growth of 9 per cent.  Similarly, the number of passengers had been expected to rise by 5.2 per cent with an earning target of Rs 42,210 crore.