The Indian Railway is the lifeline of India. In a country that is so vast and diverse, railway unites us by making it easier for us to travel through the length and breadth of the country. The India Railway manages the fourth largest network in the world, carrying 8.26 billion passengers and transports 1.16 billion tons of freight yearly as of fiscal year 2018. The operations of the railways have changed significantly, moving from operating on coal at the time of independence to petroleum, and now almost half of the trains run on electricity. India was the first country in Asia to have railway connectivity, and now we are so dependent on it that we cannot imagine life in the country without the convenience of a vast network of railways.
The Railway Ministry has always been one of the most important ministries due to the sheer scale on which it operates and the huge revenue it generates. Although despite large revenues, the Railway Ministry has never been able to post huge profits because there was no attempt to generate money from unconventional routes. The previous ministers could not think out of the box to generate revenue from railways, but since Piyush Goyal took over he has identified ways to make the railways profitable. He used the ticketless traveller as a means to generate profit for revenues. According to latest data from Central railway which is headquartered in Mumbai, it has registered record earnings of Rs. 42.15 crores from ticketless travellers and irregular travelers for the period of April to May. The central railway said in a statement “a total of 7.59 lakh cases of ticketless or irregular travel and unbooked luggage were detected as against 7.25 lakh cases in the corresponding period last year showing an increase of 4.70 percent. The earnings realized from such travel were Rs 42.15 crore during the period of April to May 2018, showing an increase of 2.25% as compared to earnings of Rs 41.22 crore registered during the corresponding period last year.”
Apart from this, around 1517 cases of transfer of reserved journey tickets were detected and Rs. 12.77 lakh was recovered as a penalty. This unconventional route to generate profit will be beneficial to railways which mostly posts a red balance sheet. Ticketless travellers are a menace in India, not only do they cause huge losses to the Railways but also immense problems to the fellow legal travelers like a fight over space, overcrowding, general inconvenience etc. Since long ticketless travellers have become habitual of this act, and when caught they just bribe the ticket examiner and escape, only to repeat the act in the future. The new stricter rules and fine on ticketless travellers will not only give a happier journey to the law-abiding citizen but it will also bring more money in the coffers of the railways board.
The NDA government has been able to make significant changes in Indian Railways, having picked up pace in capital expenditure, electrification etc.
Under Suresh Prabhu, the Railway Ministry focused on getting Railways out of the cycle of under-investment and creating future network capacity through long-gestation works. Under his tenure, ticket booking has been made free of dalals and become fairly transparent. NDA government in last four years has focused on infrastructure capacity building laying second, third and fourth line to enhance the network. Under the tutelage of Piyush Goyal, the railways brought down the number of accidents to 73 for the year of 2017-18, which is the lowest ever recorded yet. The Railway Ministry has been able to bring the project of a bullet train and a railway university, which were stuck in limbo due to the policy paralysis during UPA era.