Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has refuted the reports and claims that railway passengers have become half of what it used to be in 2010. The railway minister has claimed that there has been no decrease in the railway passenger traffic, and by the end of the financial year, the number of passengers will reach the pre-COVID levels of 650 crore to 700 crore.
“Post-Covid lockdown, the Indian Railways started its train services in December 2021 and by July 2022, operations were normalised. In the 2022-23 financial year, 640 crore people used the train network,” Vaishnaw said.
“This year, according to our conservative estimate, 650 crore people will travel (in trains). The number might go up to 750 crore. So we are back to the pre-Covid era when the number of train travellers used to be around 700 crore,” he added.
The railway minister also dismissed reports claiming non-AC and sleeper coaches were reduced from the trains. Stating the figures, Vaishnaw said, “We have around 60,000 train coaches, out of which 40,000 are non-AC, which is a significant number.”
AC or Non-AC classes?
The press statement said that Indian railways have received 390.2 crore passengers in the past seven months, which is 41.1 crore more than the passengers in the previous year, where railways catered to 349.1 crore passengers. Out of the 41.1 crore additional passengers, 92.5 per cent passengers, or 38 crore passengers travelled in non-AC classes (Sleeper or General coaches).
During the last seven months, 18.2 crore passengers travelled in AC coaches, while 372 crore passengers travelled in non-AC coaches.
(With PTI inputs)