Daily
Excelsior: New Delhi: Monday, September 02, 2019.
Last-minute
travellers have helped railways earn a whopping Rs 25,392 crore in the last
four years, an RTI has found.
The
national transporter earned Rs 21,530 crore from Tatkal quota tickets and an
additional Rs 3,862 crore from Tatkal Premium tickets between 2016 and 2019,
with a massive 62 per cent increase in revenue from the latter during this
period.
Tatkal
booking was introduced in 1997 in select trains with an objective of providing
accommodation for last-minute travellers and was extended across the country in
2004.
Tatkal
ticket charges have been fixed as a percentage of fare at the rate of 10 per
cent of basic fare for second class and 30 per cent of basic fare for all other
classes subject to minimum and maximum.
Under
the premium version, which was introduced in 2014 in select trains, 50 per cent
of tatkal quota tickets are sold using the dynamic fare system.
In
2016-2017, the revenue from such tickets touched Rs 6,672 crore, going up to Rs
6,915 crore the following year.
In
2017-2018 railways’ earning from Tatkal quota rose to Rs 6,952 crore, according
to a RTI filed by Madhya Pradesh based RTI activist Chandrashekar Gaur.
However,
it is in the Tatkal Premium quota tickets that railways saw a 62 per cent jump
in its earnings from 2016-2017 to 2018-2019 to Rs 1608 crore. In 2016-2017, the
amount was Rs 1,263 crore and in 2017-2018, the amount was Rs 991 crore.
The
tatkal scheme currently covers around 2,677 trains. According to railway
figures, around 1.71 lakh seats, of the 11.57 lakh available, are up for
booking under the tatkal scheme. (PTI)
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