Railways' first 'private' train Tejas posts Rs 70 lakh profit in first month of operations

IRCTC's Tejas Express, the Railway's first privately run train, earned a revenue of around Rs 3.70 crore (US$ 0.53 million), recording a profit of around Rs 70 lakh (US$ 0.10 million) till October 2019, marking a steady start. 

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation's Lucknow-Delhi 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.

According to the source, the train has run with an average occupancy of around 80-85 per cent since it began operations on October 5 of this year.

The train runs six days a week, totalling to 21 days from October 5 to October 28, wherein the expenditure generated by IRCTC in running the train was around Rs 3 crore (US$ 0.43 million), they said.

The Railway subsidiary earned around Rs 17.50 lakh (US$ 0.03 million) daily from passenger fares whereas it spent an average of approximately Rs 14 lakh (US$ 0.02 million) per day to run the state-of-the-art train.

The Tejas Express on the Lucknow-Delhi route is the first project of Railway's where train is running by non-railway operator and its own subsidiary IRCTC.

The benefits offered by IRCTC for its passengers include combination meals, free insurance of up to Rs 25 lakh (US$ 0.04 million) and compensation in case of delays.

The government last month established a special task force consisting of a group of secretaries to expedite the initiative on private train operation and station redevelopment projects. Though, the first meeting of the group is yet to take place.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.