At least 45,000-50,000 passengers with confirmed reservations miss their trains every day across the country, giving the Indian Railways a windfall of Rs 2.5 crore daily, or anywhere between Rs 700 to 900 crore annually.
This revelation came in response to an RTI application to the Ministry of Railways.
The data suggests that about 18 to 20 lakh people travel against confirmed reservations every day, out of which about 45,000 to 50,000 fail to report on time.
A zonal-wise break-up of 2017data shows that the West Central Railway zone recorded the highest percentage, i.e, 4.2 while the North Eastern Railway had the lowest 1.3 per cent of such passengers.
“When people don’t report to the Travel Ticket Examiner (TTE) in the train against their reservations after it departs from the station, he makes a list of such people as ‘not reported’ and submits it to the commercial department of the respective divisions,” informs a railway official.
He further says that the respective zones maintain the data for six months with details of the individuals who miss their trains. However, the absolute number is sent to the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) which archives the same.
Senior officials from various railway zones agree that the number would have been higher if all trains ran on time. “Delay in departure saves many people,” admits an official from the East Central Railway zone.
Railway officials also admit that people who miss their trains turn out to be a huge money spinner for the railways.
“According to a rough estimation, railways’ daily earning from such passengers is over 2.5 crore due to the change in the refund rule in 2015,” says an official from CRIS.
Before 2015, a passenger could claim 50 per cent of refund up to two hours before actual departure of the train. On November 12, 2015 the new rule was implemented. According to the new provisions, a passenger can claim 50 per cent of refund between 12 hours and four hours before the scheduled departure of the train.
“We depart from the rule and consider refund in such cases where people have missed their trains due to unforeseen circumstances such as natural calamity, flood, some violent political protest leading to jam etc,” informs a railway official.