Senior Citizen Ticket Concession: The last financial year was special in many respects in terms of railways. During this, keeping in mind the convenience of the passengers, eight Vande Bharat trains were started on different routes.
Apart from this, a tremendous increase was also recorded in the revenue from passenger fare and freight. In this sequence, information was given by the Southern Railway that an increase of about 80 percent was recorded in the revenue. It stood at Rs 6,345 crore in the passenger segment during the financial year 2022-23. This is the highest ever revenue.
64 crore passengers traveled in 2022-2023
Southern Railway earned a revenue of Rs 3,539.77 crore during this period of the last financial year. Earlier, the highest revenue earned by Southern Railway was Rs 5,225 crore in the financial year 2019-20. In the official release issued by the Southern Railway, it was said that in the year 2022-2023, about 64 crore passengers traveled. This is 88.5 percent more than the 34 crore passengers of 2021-22.
Demand to restore exemption
Southern Railway has also achieved many achievements in the freight segment. This includes highest ever loading of cargo at 4.05 MT, highest ever loading of 5.2 MT of petroleum and 3.23 MT of food grains. After the tremendous earnings for the Railways, there is a demand again to restore the concession given to senior citizens on tickets.
Let us tell you that in March 2020, during the Corona period, the exemption given to senior citizens on rent was stopped by the Railways. The concession on passenger fare was not resumed even after all the facilities were regularized by the Railways. There is a continuous demand from the passengers to start this facility again. On this, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav had said that 55 percent discount is already being given to the passengers by the Railways. But now on the increase in revenue, it is expected to resume the exemption in rent.
