Lok Sabha Question No. 4000 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2015-12-23
Subject: Passenger and Freight Traffic
Ministry: RAILWAYS
Asked by: UDIT RAJ, MALLIKARJUN  KHARGE

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4000 TO BE ANSWERED ON 23.12.2015

## PASSENGER AND FREIGHT TRAFFIC

4000.

DR. UDIT RAJ: SHRI MALLIKARJUN KHARGE:

Will the Minister of RAILWAYS be pleased to state:

- (a) the percentage market share of Indian Railways in the transportation of freight during the last three years, year-wise;
- (b) the share of the Railways revenue from freight during the above period;
- (c) the  reasons  for  the  fall  of  share  of  the  Railways,  if  any,  in  the freight market and passenger section;
- (d) whether  the  Government  proposes  to  improve  the  share  of Railways in the freight market and passenger section and to make it more attractive for business; and
- (e) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

(SHRI MANOJ SINHA)

(a) to (e):   A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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STATEMENT  REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (a)  TO  (e)  OF UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4000 BY DR. UDIT RAJ & SHRI MALLIKARJUN  KHARGE  TO  BE  ANSWERED  IN  LOK  SABHA  ON 23.12.2015 REGARDING PASSENGER AND FREIGHT TRAFFIC

(a): Of the total availability (production plus import) of select major commodities, the percentage share carried by the Indian Railways for three  years  ending  2013-14  as  released  in  latest  issue  of  Indian Railway Year Book is given below:

(figures in %)

(R) - Revised;  (P) - Provisional

|             |   Coal |   Iron Ore |   Cement |   Food- grains |   Fertilizers |   POL Products |
|-------------|--------|------------|----------|----------------|---------------|----------------|
| 2011-12     |  70.91 |      61.75 |    47.74 |          17.89 |         86.26 |          18.16 |
| 2012-13 (R) |  70.7  |      79.77 |    41.81 |          19.06 |         86.28 |          17.39 |
| 2013-14 (P) |  69.2  |      81.33 |    42.74 |          20.8  |         86.98 |          17.33 |

(b):  Share  of  Freight  earnings  in  Total  Traffic  Earnings  of  Indian Railways is as follows :

(`. in cr.)

| Year    |   Goods Earnings |   Total Traffic Earnings (Earnings from Passenger, Goods, Other Coaching and Sundry other earnings) | Share of Freight earnings in Total Traffic Earnings   |
|---------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------|
| 2011-12 |            69548 |                                                                                              104154 | 66.8%                                                 |
| 2012-13 |            85263 |                                                                                              123901 | 68.8%                                                 |
| 2013-14 |            93906 |                                                                                              139838 | 67.2%                                                 |
| 2014-15 |           105791 |                                                                                              157072 | 67.4%                                                 |

Contd…2/-

(c): The demand for freight loading on Indian Railways is a derived demand and is dependent on the growth of the economy, especially the  core  sector,  since  Railways  is  primarily  a  bulk  carrier  of  freight. The short fall in freight earnings was largely due to slow growth in the core sector of the economy, compounded by negative growth in Iron Ore after mining restrictions in Karnataka and Odhisha and a quantum drop in exports.

As far as passenger traffic is concerned, the decline can be attributed to various factors including the changed norms/regulations in the issue of concessional  tickets,  particularly in  the  case  of  Izzat  MSTs, improvement  in  road  infrastructure leading to better and  faster connectivity, rise in number of personal and commercial vehicles, rise in  diversion  of  traffic  to  metro  rail  in  big  cities,  natural  calamities causing closure of certain sections etc.

(d) & (e): For improving the market share of Railways, the measures adopted  have  been  to  increase  the  axle  load  for  carrying  additional traffic per wagon, increasing length of freight trains, computerization of  freight  operations  for  efficient  monitoring,  deployment  of  higher capacity  locomotives  and  wagons,  improved  maintenance  practices for rolling stock, improvements  in  track signaling and  capacity building of staff for adoption of new technology and practices.

In order to increase the market share of Railways, in non-conventional traffic in high capacity and Special Purpose Wagons, schemes through Public Private Partnership (PPP) have been introduced :

- (i) Liberalised Wagon Investment Scheme - So far, 59 rakes by 15 firms have been approved for procurement out of which 30 rakes have been procured and are running.
- (ii) Wagon Leasing Scheme : Two companies have been registered as wagon leasing company, after which 12 rakes of BLC wagons were procured and approvals for 4 new BLC and 2 BTAP rakes have been accorded.
- (iii) Special Freight Train Operators Scheme : Approvals for procurement of 3 rakes of BRNA wagons given so far.
- (iv) Automobile, Freight Train Operators Scheme : License has been given  to  2  companies  to  work  as  AFTO  and  7  rakes  have  been procured till date.

In  addition,  a  scheme,  Private  Freight  Terminal  (PFT),  has  been introduced to involve private investment in freight terminals.

Some  further  initiatives  taken  to  improve  share  of  Railways  in freight services are :

- (i) Automatic Rebate for Traditional Empty Flow Direction Traffic : With a view to convert empty running of rakes into loaded ones, automatic freight rebate scheme has been introduced from 25.06.2015, wherein, all rakes loaded in notified empty flow direction are charged at Class-

contd….4/-

- LR1  (Train  Load)  and  at  Class-100  (Wagon  Load),  subject  to  certain terms and conditions.  Under this scheme, customer need not apply, instead  the  system  automatically  calculates  discounted  freight  once the  traffic  is  loaded  in  notified  empty  flow  directions.    System  has been  made  simple,  IT  enabled,  customer  centric  without  manual intervention.
- (ii) Distance Based Charge on Export Iron Ore : In order to boost the flagging demand of Iron ore for export traffic, Distance Based Charge leviable  on  Export  Iron  Ore  has  been  reduced  to ` 300/-  only,  with effect from 08 th  September 2015.
- (iii) Rationalisation of Freight Rates : The classification of following commodities, i.e., Coal, Cement, Iron or Steel, Pig Iron, Iron Ores and Petroleum Products have been reduced.  Further, the distance slabs beyond 1500 kms has been revised from 250 kms to 125 kms.

The measures taken for improvement of passenger traffic include :

- (i) augmentation  of  on-board  capacity  by  attachment  of  additional coaches, running of special trains during vacations, running of Suvidha trains etc.
- (ii) augmentation of ticket selling capacity through Automatic Ticket Vending  Machines  (ATVMs),  Cash-Coin  and  Smart  Card  Operated Ticket  Vending  Machines  (CoTVMs),  mobile  ticketing,  utilization  of services of ticketing agents like Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Sevaks (JSTBS),  Station  Ticket  Booking  Agents  (STBA)  and  Yatri  Ticket Suvidha Kendras (YTSK).

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