Lok Sabha Question No. 2949 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-05-11
Subject: Comparison of Railway Transport with Road/Air Transport
Ministry: RAILWAYS
Asked by: C.R. CHAUDHARY

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2949 TO BE ANSWERED ON 11.05.2016

## COMPARISON OF RAILWAY TRANSPORT WITH ROAD/AIR TRANSPORT

-  2949.  SHRI C.R. CHAUDHARY:

Will the Minister of RAILWAYS be pleased to state:

- (a) the percentage of railway transport in the country in comparison to road and air transport; and
- (b) the steps taken/ being taken by the Railways to face the competition of other modes of transport in the country?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

## (SHRI MANOJ SINHA)

- (a) Authentic data of traffic from other modes of transport mainly road and air  is  not  completely  available  and  hence  not  strictly  comparable  with the rail traffic. For door to door service as well as short lead traffic, road transport  is  preferred.  Whereas,  for  long  distances  and  bulk  traffic  rail mode is preferred. Therefore, the market share of traffic transported by rail is difficult to assess accurately.

However, over the years rail traffic has registered a significant growth in absolute  terms.  The  freight  traffic  handled  by  Indian  Railways  has increased  more  than  15  fold  from  73.2  Million  Tonnes  in  1950-51  to 1104.17 Million Tonnes in 2015-16.

In case of passenger traffic, the number of passengers booked by Indian Railways  has  increased  from  3680.27  million  in  1990-91  to  8151.90

million in 2015-16.

- (b) In  order  to  attract  additional  traffic  to  Railways  and  thereby  increasing freight  revenue,  Indian  Railways  has  taken  several  steps  like  Automatic Freight  Rebate  Scheme  for  traffic  loaded  in  empty  flow  directions, Incentive Scheme for Freight Forwarders, improving throughput per train, running of long haul trains etc.

To increase rail traffic, Indian Railways have introduced various schemes like  Liberalized  Wagon  Investment  Scheme,  Wagon  Leasing  Scheme, Special Freight Operator Scheme  (SFTO), Automobile Freight Train Operator Scheme (AFTO), Development of Rail-side Warehousing complexes, development of Private Freight Terminals, door-to-door service for  non-bulk  traffic  through  containerized  movement  through  Container Corporation of India Limited (CONCOR) as well as through other Container Train  Operators  (private  operators).  For  non-bulk  traffic,  parcel  express trains  are  running  on  12  routes.    95  Rail  Milk  Tankers  (RMT)  have  been procured by National Dairy Development Board for transportation of milk, which are plying at different locations.

The measures taken for improving passenger traffic include-

- (i) Augmentation  of  on-board  capacity  by  attachment  of  additional coaches,  running  of  special  trains  during  festivals  and  holidays, running of Suvidha trains etc.
- (ii) Organizing intensive ticket checking drives including fortress checks etc.
- (iii) Augmentation of ticket selling capacity through operation of Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVM), Cash-coin & Smart Card operated Ticket Vending Machines (CoTVM), mobile ticketing, utilizing  the  services  of  ticketing  agents  like  Jan  Sadhran  Ticket Booking Sewaks (JTBS), Station Ticket Booking Agents (STBA), Yatri Ticket Suvidha Kendra (YTSK) etc.

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