Tirupati station achieves 200% growth in revenue

Tirupati: After feeling the brunt of Covid-19 pandemic, the railways could be back on track swiftly, gradually improving its operations. The passenger footfall as well as revenue of Indian railways are on rise during the last fiscal after witnessing a minimal performance during the first year of pandemic.

The pilgrim station Tirupati which attracts passengers from across the country is one of the important revenue spinning stations for railways in the South Central Railway zone. Still, it could not escape from the severe losses due to restrictions imposed during the pandemic. The restrictions put forth by TTD in allowing pilgrims for darshan of Lord till a couple of months back was also another major reason for the reducing rail passenger footfall in Tirupati station.

Still, the station witnessed a 200 per cent growth in revenue during 2020-21 and 2021-22 as it earned Rs 199.83 crore in 2021-22 compared to Rs 66.51 crore in the previous year. During the same period, the passenger footfalls have improved by 71.09 per cent as it recorded 15,026 passengers per day in 2021-22 compared to 8,782 in the previous year.

But, still there is a long way to go to reach the prep-Covid stage. Significantly, in 2019-20 an average of 83,558 passengers have travelled through the station which has witnessed a steep drop to reach 8,782 in the next year. The annual revenue of Rs 336.23 crore in 2019-20 has dropped to Rs 66.51 crore by the next year as revealed by senior divisional commercial manager (DCM), Guntakal B Prashanth Kumar.

He told The Hans India that the number of trains have also increased gradually. Before Covid, Tirupati station used to handle 130 trains on an average per day including 60 daily and 70 non-daily trains. Now about 110 services are being operated including 48 daily and 62 non-daily.

It was learnt that many passenger trains are to be revived which were revoked during the pandemic. The railways have been introducing several summer specials from time to time based on the passenger rush and it was learnt that the railway board has been working on re-introducing several cancelled trains in the next few days as the passenger footfall was on rise.