Railways’ first privately-run train Tejas Express reports Rs70 lakh profit for October
11 Nov 2019
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The Tejas Express, Indian Railways’ first semi-high speed fully air-conditioned train, which is being operated by Railways’ ticketing arm Indian Railways Catering and Ticketing Corporation (IRCTC), claims to have made a profit of Rs70 lakh in its first month of operation.
IRCTC's Tejas Express earned a revenue of nearly Rs3.7 crore in October through sale of tickets. The train has run with an average occupancy of 80-85 per cent since it began operations on 5 October.
Between 5 October and 28 October (21 days, as the train runs six days a week), IRCTC incurred an expenditure of Rs3 crore in running the train.
The Railway subsidiary, spent an average Rs14 lakh per day to run the state-of-the-art train and earned around Rs17.50 lakh daily from sale of tickets.
IRCTC offers a slew of benefits for its passengers, including combination meals, free insurance of up to Rs25 lakh and compensation in case of delays.
In fact, Tejas Express offered passengers on its Lucknow-Delhi route a compensation of Rs250 each after the train got delayed for nearly two hours on 5 October 2019.
Under IRCTC's travel insurance policy, passengers of Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express, will receive Rs100 if the delay is for an hour. The compensation amount increases to Rs250 in case the train is delayed by more than two hours.
IRCTC sent SMS to all passengers with website link where travel insurance number could be submitted for the refund. The delay will cost IRCTC nearly Rs1.62 lakh.
However, Railways has put off plans to introduce Tejas Express on other routes, including the Mumbai-Surat route.
The Lucknow-New Delhi Tejas Express, which was inaugurated on 4 October 2019, is the only such train being operated currently.
Tejas Express is part of the Railways' bid to develop 50 railway stations of world-class standards and allowing private passenger train operators to run 150 trains on its network.
The government last month constituted a special task force comprising a group of secretaries to expedite the initiative on private train operation and station redevelopment projects. However, the first meeting of the group is yet to take place.
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