New Delhi: The coffers of the Indian railways has been badly hit due to the nationwide lockdown induced due to COVID with the transport giant raking in 90 per cent less revenue than last year after the suspension of passenger services.
While addressing a virtual press briefing, Chairman Railway Board, Vinod Kumar Yadav said, "Railways has earned Rs 3,322 crore from the passenger segment, which is 90 per cent less than last year, due to COVID-19."
At present, 736 special trains are being operated. In addition to this, Railways has recently started 436 Festive Special Trains for the period of October 20 till November 30. In July 2020, Railways had also started 200 services of Kolkata Metro.
When asked about the resumption of full passenger services, Yadav said that Railways is in contact with state governments and assessing the COVID situation, according to which decision will be taken. However, he mentioned that a final date cannot be provided due to the uncertainty of pandemic.
Railways have also witnessed a 9 per cent revenue growth in freight loading. The Railway official said, "For all commodities, freight loading has grown by 14.8 per cent, due to which there has been a 9 per cent revenue growth, which comes to Rs 869 crore more than the last year."
Also read: Freight loading in October 2020 crosses last year's figures by 15 Pc
He further added, "We have also seen tremendous growth in automobile loading as 320 rakes have been loaded in October as compared to the loading of 162 rakes during the corresponding period of the previous year. Kisan Rail has also picked up and we are running these trains as per the requirement."
Yadav also noted that there has been a major surge in the demand of trains as out of the 736 special trains, 327 trains have passengers in waiting list.
"We are monitoring the situation, once we determine the nature of waitlist, we will run clone trains on these routes. However, these will be only reserved trains and will follow all the coronavirus protocols," VK Yadav said.
Railways are also planning to tap into artificial intelligence, under which a Center of Excellence will be set up in Hyderabad for data analytics and one Chief Technological Officer will be appointed in each division. An MoU has been signed with the Indian School of Business for the purpose.
On Bullet Train project, Yadav stated that 66 per cent of the total land has been acquired as of now and it is expected that 95 per cent of land in Gujarat will be acquired by next month.
