Travellers have stolen linens worth more than a 100 crore from Indian Railways over the past four years — with the money often recovered from the salary of coach attendants. The startling figures came to light following a right to information report filed by the Indian Express with all 69 divisions. The somewhat incomplete picture painted by their responses also highlights a 56% rise in such thefts between 2022 and 2025.
An investigation by Indian Express reveals that at least 1.27 crore bedroll pieces were stolen — mainly by passengers — between January 2022 and May 2026. Responses were shared by only 54 railway divisions, with many omitting the cost of the items lost or declining to share theft figures for all linen categories. But the available information reveals a staggering Rs 104.51 crore loss for contractors within a span of four years.
Passengers travelling in airconditioned sleeper coaches are typically given two bedsheets, a blanket, a pillow, a pillow cover and a face towel. Indian Railways ferries millions of passengers every day, with an estimated 8,00,000 making overnight journeys within these AC compartments.
1.27 crore bedsheets, towels, blankets, pillows stolen
The RTI data shared with Indian Express said over 1.27 crore bedroll items — bedsheets, towels, blankets and pillows — have gone missing from AC railway coaches since bedroll services resumed fully after COVID-19 in January 2022. A Railway ministry spokesperson told the publication that “efforts are being made to prevent linen theft and take action against offenders”.
Face towels have become the most stolen item with about 46.54 lakh going missing in four years. Bedsheets follow with 41.13 lakh filched by commuters while pillow covers are a distant third at 23.59 lakh. Blankets (12.95 lakh) and pillows (2.76 lakh) round out the list of thefts.
Ten divisions across seven zones account for 67% of the overall linen theft. The Indian Express investigation revealed that the worst-hit divisions are Bikaner with 25.76 lakh items, Ranchi with 9.31 lakh, and Delhi with 8.21 lakh. Mumbai has recorded the theft of 8.17 lakh bedroll items, Jodhpur 8.09 lakh, Ahmedabad 6.94 lakh and Danapur 5.72 lakh. The Bikaner division also leads when it comes to a spike in such thefts since 2022 — from 2.99 lakh to 12.34 lakh items — while Delhi managed to cut theft by 79% during this period.
Who pays for these missing items?
RTI data indicates the theft cost bedroll contractors about Rs 104.51 crore during this period. Coach attendants employed by the contractors told the publication that this money is mostly recovered from their salaries. A Railways spokesperson told IE that it “cannot establish” any evidence of staff collusion in the theft.
“Generally linen (items) are collected by linen attendants after de-boarding of passengers from trains. The responsibility of account of linens in Railway coaches is of the agency who has been deployed for linen distribution. For any shortage, cost recovery is done from the bills of the agency,” a Railways spokesperson told the publication.
Some contractors told Indian Express that they had been forced to scrap contracts with the Railways as the problem grew. The linen items are the property of the Railways, but its divisions engage contractors to manage and supply them within trains. And in many cases, attendants bear the responsibility as contractors cut into their salary to recover the cost of these stolen items.
“A significant portion of the earnings is deducted from the bill for these cases. We had a three-year contract with the Railways, but we had to end it in 14 months due to delay in payment. We had deployed around 60 staff in coaches for the distribution in 5 trains. For every stolen item, they recover Rs 115 for pillow, Rs 198 for bedsheet, Rs 55 for pillow cover, Rs 48 for face towel and Rs 343 for blanket,” the supervisor of a bedroll distribution firm in the Solapur division of Central Railway told Indian Express.