Er Sees 500m Commuters This Fiscal

The Eastern Railway which experienced a record growth in its suburban commuter traffic last year, expects to carry more than 500 million commuters this fiscal.

The zonal railway carried 487 million commuters in 1999-2000 reflecting a record 10.67 per cent growth. It expects a similar 10 per cent rate of growth this year too.

However, the most spectacular increase in traffic occurred in the last four months of the last fiscal. While the suburban passenger growth was a modest seven per cent between April and November 1999, the rise was an unprecedented 17 per cent between December 1999 and March 2000.

 

The Eastern Railway carried 384 million suburban commuters in 1987-88. It fell sharply by seven per cent in 1988-89. It rose again by 6.37 per cent in 1989-90 and then by a healthy 8.31 per cent in 1990-91 as the total number of commuters crossed the 400 million mark for the first time.

The growth rate was 4.42 per cent in 1991-92 before a disastrous downturn in 1992-93 when there was a negative growth of 9.72 per cent. The year 1993-94 experienced a marginal 1.55 per cent rate of growth. The rate picked up to 4.32 per cent in 1994-95 after which the growth rate almost flattened to 0.02 per cent in 1995-96 and 0.93 per cent in 1996-97.

The year 1997-98 saw a better growth rate of 4.01 per cent which again fell to 2.16 per cent in 1998-99.

Then came the year of the big leap in 1999-2000 as the commuter growth rate touched a new high of 10.67 per cent. The zonal railway was able to carry 47 million more passengers than in 1998-99.

Railway officials explained the good harvest to the twin factors of sustained drive against ticketless travelling, and, repeated public appeals by minister for railways Mamata Banerjee to buy tickets.

The drive against ticketless travelling is reflected in a significantly higher number of ticketless passengers detected during 1999-2000.

Against 11.52 lakh ticketless commuters detected in all types of trains in 1998-99, the number shot up to 15.75 lakh last year.

What was more interesting is that the average realisation of fare and fine from ticketless commuters was Rs 91 only against Rs 117 the previous year.