In what may appear as a dent to the Indian Railways, the number of senior citizens travelling by train has dropped 85% between 2019 and 2022, which has pared down the earning from that category by more than 90%, according to the Right to Information (RTI) Act data.
The reply to an RTI filed by News18 shows around 1.2 crore senior citizens travelled by train in the calendar year 2022, generating an earning of Rs 150 crore. In 2019, there were 7.4 crore senior citizen train passengers who earned Railways Rs 1,663 crore in revenue.
The number of senior citizens travelled in the Railways has constantly dropped since 2019 — from 7.4 crore to 1.8 crore in 2020 to 1.3 crore in 2021 and 1.2 crore last year.
The average earning of Railways from each senior citizen passenger was Rs 225 in 2019 that was reduced to half in 2022 to Rs 123. It is also interesting to note that while the number of senior citizen passengers has dipped in the last two years, the earnings of Railways for the period has doubled.
The RTI data also showed that between 2019 and 2022, across all categories, the total tickets booked has reported a jump of around 30%, and between 2021 and 2022, it has increased by 12%. In 2019, 42 crore tickets were booked by the railways generating the earning of Rs 36,380 crore. In 2022, this increased to 53.54 crore tickets that generated Rs 47,757 crore in revenue.
Concession for senior citizens stopped since March 2020
In March 2020, with the outbreak of coronavirus, the Indian Railways had announced the withdrawal of train ticket concession for various categories of people, including senior citizens.
During the pre-Covid era, the railways gave fare concession in all classes of Mail, Express, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Jan Shatabdi and Duronto trains to male senior citizens of 60 years and above and females 58 years and above.
Men were getting 40% concession while for women it was 50%. They had to opt for the “avail concession” option while booking the tickets and they were needed to carry proof of age while travelling.
How much money was railways spending on concessions?
In 2019, just before the pandemic hit, at least 6.2 crore senior citizens opted for the concessions and the ministry had to spend Rs 1,488 crore on these concessions, the RTI reply shows. On an average, the ministry had to spend around Rs 240 per passenger.
In 2020, when the scheme ran for just little over two months, the railway ministry offered concessions to 1.4 crore senior citizens that cost it Rs 346.4 crore, around Rs 245 per person on an average.
Is there a plan to restart the concession scheme for senior citizens?
The Ministry said they will not be giving fare concession to senior citizens again, according to officials.
“We are already giving 50-55% concessions for all passengers. If we do not give any concession, the ticket rate will almost double. There is not much scope for further concession. We also have to take care of the capex. We have expenditures which should be taken care of,” a senior ministry official told News18 on condition of anonymity.
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