Mumbai: The Western Railway has now claimed that Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector is a very profitable sector that has over 100 per cent occupancy even during the off-season, contrary to its own earlier RTI reply, which stated that 40 per cent of seats on all trains in this corridor go vacant.
In RTI replies to activist Anil Galgali, WR's chief commercial manager Manjit Singh had given detailed figures of the seats going vacant on this sector resulting in losses of almost Rs 30 crore between July-September 2017.
However, CPRO Ravinder Bhakar said that there are total 34 trains on this route – nine direct and 25 other trains going via Ahmedabad - and the total earnings on this sector during the previous quarter was Rs 233 crore.
The RTI reply stating the loss to be Rs 30 crore only pertained to number of passengers travelling between Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad and vice-versa, he said.
“The information does not include information about enroute traffic, passengers from originating station to enroute stations, intermediate stations to intermediate and to destination stations between Mumbai Central and Ahmedabad, thereby showing lesser occupancy," Bhakar told IANS.
Despite the July-September period being a lean season, he said the occupancy on this sector remained 100 percent plus on all the 34 trains.
Giving details, the CPRO said that on the nine direct trains, there were 8,03,150 berths and actual bookings were 830,978, or 103 per cent occupancy. In the 25 trains going via Ahmedabad, the total berths available were 10,70,710 and actual bookings were 12,30,585, or 115 per cent. The booking percentage was even higher at 121 per cent for return.
Asked to comment, RTI activist Galgali said it is very strange that the Western Railways is now giving different data despite his specific RTI query of figures for the Ahmedabad-Mumbai corridor, which implied all stations enroute.
Appropriate information on the number of passengers and revenue records should have been provided, he said.
Galgali said that in the data given under RTI, details of all classes were provided but now that is not available. The RTI reply stated that on the 32 trains on Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector, there were 735,630 seats and on 31 trains on Ahmedabad-Mumbai sector, there were 706,446 seats.
"Now, the WR is saying the total number of seats on this sector on 34 trains is much higher. Why the huge discrepancy in the figures given by the WR Chief Commercial Manager under RTI and data given by the spokesperson?" Galgali asked.
The RTI activist said that if the replies provided were wrong, the Western Railway should initiate stringent action against the persons concerned and Railway Ministry must issue a detailed White Paper on the occupancy and revenue status on this crucial sector, where the Bullet Train project is being planned at a cost of over Rs 1 lakh crore.
(With IANS inputs)
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