The Hindu : Front Page : Railways coming up with freebies to woo passengers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 15, 2005

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Railways coming up with freebies to woo passengers

Vinay Kumar

To offer free upgrades to passengers from Sleeper Class to AC as part of new measures to increase occupancy

NEW DELHI: Faced with increasingly hot competition from offers of low air fares and aggressive marketing by no-frills airlines, the Indian Railways are 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 upgrades from the sleeper class to AC coaches. "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 railway 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 to 18 crores. It is expected to go up to Rs. 20 crores-Rs.22 crores by the end of this financial year.

The proposed new free upgrades will not involve any human interface and will be done through special software being developed now 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 plan to earn Rs. 350 crores to 400 crores annually through the scheme by lessening their burden of refunds for waitlisted tickets, which at present amounts to about Rs. 10 crores a day.

As many as 1,500 mail and express trains criss-cross the length and breadth of the countrywide rail network at present. Of these, 650 trains always have waitlisted passengers in the sleeper class. In 450 trains, III AC class has waitlisted passengers and in 100 trains waitlisted passengers figure in II AC as well, while there are no waitlisted passengers in First AC. Every day 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

It is also proposed to add about 450 coaches to mail and express trains in a phased manner to eliminate wait-lists, say senior railway officials.

The Railways have also set their eyes on advertisement and publicity, from where they earn only Rs. 50 crores annually at present.

"Increase ad earnings"

Union 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 in for retail leasing of hoardings.

The Railways carry around 6,000 million passengers every year and also have the largest land and other spaces for advertising and publicity, which can generate revenues many times more than last year's total earnings.

Early finalisation of tenders

In his letter to the General Managers and heads of production units, the Railway Minister has 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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