As the ‘third wave’ of Covid-19 subsided and people resumed travelling after a long gap, the railways’s earnings have recorded a sharp uptick. The total approximate earnings in the passenger segment for Indian Railways on originating basis during April-December 2022 is Rs. 48,913 crore, an increase of 71% over Rs. 28,569 crore during the same period last year.

In reserved passenger segment, the total approximate numbers of passengers booked during the period 1st April to 31st December 2022 is 59.61 crore as compared to 56.05 crore during the same period last year, showing an increase of 6%. The revenue generated from reserved passenger segment during the period is Rs 38,483 crore as compared to Rs 26,400 crore during the same period last year, showing an increase of 46%, the railway ministry said in a statement on Monday.

In Unreserved passenger segment, the total approximate numbers of passengers booked during the period 1st April to 31st December 2022 is 40197 lakhs as compared to 16968 lakhs during the same period last year, showing an increase of 137%. The revenue generated from Unreserved passenger segment during the period is Rs 10,430 crore as compared to Rs 2,169 crore during the same period last year, showing an increase of 381%. (When train services resumed after the lockdown of 2020, only reserved passengers were allowed initially, and hence the dramatic rise.)

Railways earns Rs 120478 Crores from Freight loading this FY till December 2022

On mission mode, Indian Railways' freight loading for first nine months 2022-23 crossed last year’s loading and earnings for the same period.

On cumulative basis, during April-December 2022, freight loading of 1,109.38 MT achieved against last year’s loading of 1,029.96 MT, an improvement of 8%. The railways have earned Rs 1,20,478 crore against Rs 1,04,040 crore over last year which is an improvement of 16% as compared to the same period of last year.

During December 2022, originating freight loading of 130.66 MT has been achieved against loading of 126.8 MT in December 21, which is an improvement of 3% over last year. Freight revenue of Rs. 14,573 crore have been achieved against Rs 12,914 crore freight earnings in December 2021, which is an improvement of 13%.

Following the mantra of “Hungry For Cargo”, the railways has made sustained efforts to improve the ease of doing business as well as improve the service delivery at competitive prices which has resulted in new traffic coming to railways from both conventional and non conventional commodity streams. The customer-centric approach and work of Business Development Units backed up by agile policy making helped railways towards this landmark achievement.