Lok Sabha Question No. 2950 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-12-17
Subject: Annual Growth Rate of Railways
Ministry: RAILWAYS
Asked by: Shri Partha Bhowmick

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2950

## TO BE ANSWERED ON 17.12.2025

## ANNUAL GROWTH RATE OF RAILWAYS

## 2950. SHRI PARTHA BHOWMICK:

Will the Minister of RAILWAYS be pleased to state:

- (a) the details of the Operating Ratio of the Indian Railways during the last five years, years-wise;
- (b) the Compound Annual Growth Rate of Indian Railways during the last five years, year-wise; and
- (c) the details of the net revenue accrued by Railways during the last five years, year-wise?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF RAILWAYS, INFORMATION & BROADCASTING AND ELECTRONICS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## (SHRI ASHWINI VAISHNAW)

- (a) to  (c)  To  increase  the  overall  revenue,  several  measures  have been taken by Indian Railways during last 11 years. These include the following:
-  To  increase  the  network  capacity,  rail  network  expansion  has been taken up  in  a  big  way  by  construction  of  new  lines,  multi tracking of existing lines and gauge conversion of existing lines. 34,428 km new tracks have been laid during the 11 years. Further as on 01.04.25, 431 (154 New Line, 33 Gauge Conversion and 244 Doubling)  projects  are  sanctioned.  The  summary  of  which  is  as
- under:

| Category                 |   No. of Projects | Total Length (km)   | Length completed till Mar'25 (Km)   | Balance length (Km)   |
|--------------------------|-------------------|---------------------|-------------------------------------|-----------------------|
| New lines                |               154 | 16,142              | 3,036                               | 13,105                |
| Gauge conversion         |                33 | 4,180               | 2,997                               | 1,183                 |
| Doubling/ Multi tracking |               244 | 15,644              | 6,736                               | 8,909                 |
| Total                    |               431 | 35,966              | 12,769                              | 23,197                |

-  Removing bottlenecks in operations by yard remodeling, construction of bypass/chord lines, rail flyovers etc.
-  The  construction  of  Eastern  Dedicated  Freight  Corridor  (EDFC) from  Ludhiana  to  Sonnagar  (1337  Km)  and  Western  Dedicated Freight  Corridor  (WDFC)  from  Jawaharlal  Nehru Port Terminal (JNPT)  to  Dadri  (1506  Km)  has  been  taken  up.  Out  of  total  2843 kms, 2741 route kms (96.4%) has been commissioned and operational.
-  Indian Railways has taken up electrification of Railway lines in a mission  mode.  So far,  about  99.1%  of  Broad  Gauge  (BG)  network has  been  electrified.  A  comparison  of  electrification  before  and after 2014 is as follows:
-  Procurement  of  Wagons  and  Locomotives:  To  increase  freight carrying capacity, large numbers of IR wagons have  been procured and  locomotives  have  been  manufactured.  During  2014  to  2025, about  2  lakh  wagons  have  been  procured  and  more  than  10,000 locomotives  have  been  added  for  increasing  freight  loading  and

| Period      | Route Kilometre   |
|-------------|-------------------|
| Before 2014 | 21,801            |
| 2014-25     | 46,900            |

mobility.

-  Industry  participation  in  investment  in  General  Purpose  Wagons, Special Purpose/High-Capacity  wagons  and  Automobile  carrier wagons  for  cement,  oil,  steel,  fly-ash,  automobile  etc.  So  far, around 240 rakes of special purpose wagons, 374 rakes of generalpurpose,  wagons  and  48  rakes  of  automobile  wagons  have  been inducted.
-  Under the 'Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT)' policy so far,  118  new  GCTs  have  been  commissioned,  with  an  estimated traffic capacity of 192  million tonnes per  annum  (MTPA).  In addition, for improvement of freight and parcel terminals from the financial  year  2023-24  onwards,  an  amount  of  ₹14,500  crore  has been allocated.
-  A  'Bulk  Cement  Terminal  Policy'  for  setting  up  terminals  on Railway  land  has  been  launched  recently  as  part  of  Railway reforms for facilitating Bulk Cement transportation.
-  Ensuring increased availability of rakes/wagons against demand.
-  Use  of  Information  Technology  in  freight  operations  to  improve monitoring and utilization  of assets.
- 
- Induction of higher horsepower locomotives.
-  Improvement in maintenance practices of wagons and locomotives  resulting  in  increased availability of loco and rolling stock for traffic use.
-  Improvement  in  track  and  signaling  standards  to  carry  higher
- volume of traffic.

Because of the above measures, the cargo loading has increased from 1,055 MT in 2013-14 to 1,617 MT in 2024-25 i.e. increase of about 54%. The revenue has also increased substantially  during  this  period  from

Rs. 1,39,838 cr. in 2013-14 to Rs. 2,65,678 cr. in 2024-25 i.e. increase of about 90%.

Railways'  financial  position  with  surplus  and  Operating  Ratio  since 2021-22 is given below:

(Rs. in crore)

|                   | 2021-22*   | 2022-23   | 2023-24   | 2024-25   |
|-------------------|------------|-----------|-----------|-----------|
| Total Revenue     | 1,91,367   | 2,40,177  | 2,56,094  | 2,65,678  |
| Total Expenditure | 2,06,392   | 2,37,660  | 2,52,834  | 2,63,018  |
| Surplus           | -15,025    | 2,517     | 3,260     | 2,660     |
| Operating Ratio   | 107.39%    | 98.10%    | 98.43%    | 98.22%    |

*****