Why Railways incurred loss of Rs 79 cr in 09-10

Indifferent attitude towards withdrawal of uneconomical stoppages, "injudicious" creation of passenger amenities and failure to augment coaches on time have led the Railways to incur a total loss of Rs 79 crore, Comptroller and Auditor General said its report for 2009-10.

It said the Railways' "failure to withdraw uneconomical temporary stoppages" resulted in a loss of over Rs 33.54 crore despite Southern Railway -- which has several such stoppages -- intimating the Railway Board in this regard.

The CAG said the stoppages, initiated on public representation or for meeting social obligations, should have been discontinued as even the minimum cost of stoppages "could not be recovered".

Such stoppages were identified in Southern, South Central, South Eastern and North-east Frontier Railway zones. Less than 40 tickets were sold in these stations per day. The CAG said after reviewing the status of the stoppages, Southern Railway had intimated the Railway Board in February 2007 about 126 such stoppages in its zone which were found uneconomical.

"Railway administration, however, did not recommend for their elimination," the report said.

It said uneconomical temporary stoppages were also noticed in South Central Railway (18 stoppages), North-east Frontier Railway (13 stoppages) and South-Eastern Railway (one stoppage).

The CAG also rapped the Railways for "injudicious" creation of passenger amenities in excess of prescribed norms and execution of construction works that unnecessarily resulted in an avoidable additional expenditure of around Rs 10 crore.

It said in South Central Railway, passenger amenities like waiting halls, waiting rooms, high-level platforms, cover over platform and foot-over-bridges were provided in excess of prescribed norms in 59 stations under the zone.

It further said the Railways' failure in augmenting the train composition to 24 coaches in popular services by the target date resulted in non-realisation of anticipated additional revenue to the extent of Rs 35.78 crore.

To provide confirmed berths to waitlisted passengers and earn additional revenue, Railways have decided to increase number of coaches in 19 trains from 23 to 24 coaches and issued detailed instruction in this regard in June 2006.

The target fixed for augmenting the seating capacity of these trains was December 2007 and for some other trains it was March 2008.

However, the seating capacity of only one train could be augmented, the CAG report said.