NEW DELHI: Faced with low airfares and aggressive marketing by no-frills airlines, the Railways is planning to offer freebies to woo passengers to travel in the upper classes of mail and express trains.

A key passenger-friendly area will be free upgrade from the sleeper to AC class. "The basic idea is to ensure higher occupancy and carry more passengers. In other terms, we are trying to increase passenger kilometres in the same vehicle kilometres," senior officials said here on Thursday.

The passenger reservation system (PRS) should fetch Rs. 30 crores a day whereas the actual earning is only Rs. 16 crores-18 crores. It is expected to go up to Rs. 20 crores-Rs.22 crores by the fiscal-end.

The free upgrade will not involve any human interface and will be done, through special software being developed for the computerised reservation system, just four hours before the departure of the train. It will be on a first come, first served basis and there will be chances of even a sleeper class passenger getting upgraded if vacant berths are available. The entire family booked on a ticket would be upgraded and the computer would not "break" the number of passengers booked on a single ticket, leaving out one or two persons while upgrading.

The Railways plans to earn between Rs. 350 crores and 400 crores annually through the scheme by lessening its burden of refunds for wait-listed tickets, which is about Rs. 10 crores a day.

As many as 1,500 mail and express trains criss-cross the length and breadth of the rail network. Of these 650 trains always have waitlisted passengers in the sleeper class. In 450 trains, 3AC class has waitlisted passengers and in 100 trains waitlisted passengers figure in 2AC as well, while there are no waitlisted passengers in First AC. Everyday about 24 lakh sleeper class berths are available in mail and express trains and nearly 1.75 lakhs in all AC classes, where the occupancy falls to 47 per cent.

450 additional coaches

About 450 coaches will be added to mail and express trains in a phased manner to eliminate waitlists, say the officials.

The Railways has also sets its eyes on advertisement and publicity, from where it earns only Rs. 50 crores annually.

"Increase advt. earnings"

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad has written to all General Managers, asking them to increase the earnings by 10 to 20 times by wholesale leasing of stations and the space available through open competitive bidding rather than going for retail leasing of hoardings. The Railways carries around 6,000 million passengers every year and it also has the largest land and other spaces for advertising and publicity, which can generate revenues many times more than last year's total earnings.

Finalisation of tenders

Mr. Prasad, in his July 6 letter to the General Managers and heads of production units, also called for generation of more revenue from parcel and catering services and suburban trains.

He said all tender notices for parcel and sundry earnings contracts should be issued within 15 days and the tenders finalised over the next two months.

Contracts for parking, phone booths, catering and commercial utilisation of buildings should be revised in keeping with their true potential.

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