Indian Railways suffers 'unprecedented economic collapse' due to COVID-19

The coronavirus pandemic is having a "deep impact" on Indian Railways and has already caused an unprecedented collapse in economic activities over the last few months. However, the national transporter is currently running just 230 trains and they are hardly full. Passenger revenues have all but dried up for the state-operated entity, while the sudden imposition of the lockdown forced Indian Railways to dish out substantial sums in refunds.

Bhubaneswar: The Indian Railways is expected to record unprecedented losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As the passenger railway operations have been suspended since 22 March, the Bhubaneswar railway station, one of the busiest railway stations of the country is seeing the massive loss during this pandemic period.

However, the national transporter is currently running just 230 trains and they are hardly full. Passenger revenues have all but dried up for the state-operated entity, while the sudden imposition of the lockdown forced Indian Railways to dish out substantial sums in refunds.

As a result, the organisation has developed a lopsided reliance on freight revenues in recent weeks, as the transportation of goods has continued to some extent.

Let's have a look at the impact of Covid-19 on the revenue and passenger service of Indian railways in three zones out of 18 zones across the country. As many as 125 trains were running under the East Coast railway prior to lockdown. Now the number has reduced to only 10 to 12.

Earlier the East coast railways used to book an average of 1 lakh 78 thousand and 840 tickets per day, whereas, now the no of bookings have come down to 70,800 tickets (average per day).

However, the pandemic has caused immense trouble for the passengers as they have to wait for a ticket for a long time to commute to their place or they have to cancel their ticket due to fewer no of trains.

East Coast Railway zone (ECoR): (Headquarter: Bhubaneswar)

Nikhil Chakraborty, Chief Public Relations Officer for Eastern Railways said, " I have already tweeted to the Union Railway Minister that the special trains will run as per the demand of the passengers. The special trains that are being run on the route keeping in mind the needs of the passengers. "

As was informed by the Eastern Railway currently only eight-passenger special trains are running on the routes in different directions. However, the figure for mail expresses before the lockdown was 344.

South Eastern Railways: (The South Eastern Railway (SER) is one of the 18 railway zones in India and Part of Eastern Railways. It is headquartered at Garden Reach, Kolkata)

Official sources of South Eastern Railway confirmed that the earning in July 2019 was 150.06 lakh as against 1.12 lakh in July 2020.

Following a lockdown, only Shramik Special trains, and few other trains are in operation. Alongside, freight trains or parcel special continues to run to maintain the supply chain of essential commodities and other goods. Timetabled parcel specials have been running nationwide. These parcel trains have been planned to connect all the major cities.

As informed by the railway authorities these parcel specials have been running on those routes where there is less demand, so that no part of the country remains disconnected.

Official sources of South Eastern Railway confirmed that the earning in July 2019 was 150.06 lakh as against 1.12 lakh in July 2020. Since the start of the unlock phase passenger footfall has been a mere 10 per cent. Before lockdown, the number of mail express trains that ran daily was 168, 192 passenger trains, and 184 local trains. Close to 500 freight trains ran daily.

Presently only 12 specials are running in SER divisions. They are-Howrah Mumbai Special, Howrah Ahmedabad, Howrah Secendrabad, Howrah Bhubaneswar, Howrah Bangalore, Shalimar Patna Express, Bhubaneswar New Delhi Special, Bhubaneswar New Delhi special via Kharagpur, Howrah Barbil Special, Ranchi New Delhi Special, and Rourkela Bhubaneswar Special.

Speaking to ETV Bharat, Sanjay Ghosh, CPRO, South Eastern Railway said, "The special trains we run in India has an occupancy rate of 70 per cent. On some routes, it maybe 100 per cent. Because people are not travelling anywhere unless there is a great need. When these labour specials were released, a lot of people went back to their homes together, but now it is not happening anymore. The state government is trying to provide the special trains that are being demanded, only on the route when the demand is increasing."

"The number of special trains may increase in the coming days. But for the special trains, we are still unable to make stops in many places due to objections from the state government. We all have to fight on the same platform. We can't fight on a different platform. Also, it is not possible to run trains every day," Ghosh said.

North East Frontier Railway (NFR) : (Headquarter: Guwahati)

The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has extended the existing restriction on the movement of regular passenger trains until further notice.

NFR spokesman Nripen Bhattacharyya said that prior to lockdown there were about 250 passenger trains used to move to and from the region on a daily basis. Close to 2 lakh passengers used to take train travels every day under the Northeast Frontier railway.

Even if lockdown restrictions are lifted, coaches are likely to be filled to a much lesser extent due to health & safety concerns about the virus. The full extent of the loss depends on when the lockdown is lifted and how quick Indian travellers restore their faith in commuting by train. The national transporter has never faced such a high level of revenue loss in its 167-year history.