Tirupati: Railways feels the heat of social distancing

Tirupati: As people are becoming more aware of the seriousness of Covid-19 pandemic, the economy starts feeling its heat. One after one several sectors in the country are being affected by this virus and railways is no exception and the impact may increase manifold in the days to come.

The advisories of the government and steps being taken by the railways have made an impact on the travel plans of the passengers due to which most of them have been cancelling or postponing their travel. The authorities have been closely monitoring the situation and even cancelling some trains from time to time keeping in view the poor patronage. Among them three trains that touch Tirupati/Renigunta have been cancelled till the end of March.

To decongest the stations and reduce the mass gatherings, railways has made a steep increase in the price of platform ticket from Rs 10 to Rs 50 up to March 31. In some small stations, it would be Rs 20. Cleaning of entire premises, passenger benches and other surfaces with disinfectants being done frequently at the station.

All these developments have made a huge impact on the revenues of railways. Being the biggest pilgrim destination, Tirupati station contributes huge earnings to railways. On an average, the daily earnings from all the sources like unreserved ticket revenue, passenger reservations, parcel charges and receipts generated by TTEs amount to about Rs 30 lakh in Tirupati which has now come down to Rs 20-25 lakhs.

It is learnt that there is a fall in revenue by Rs 4,65,000 from March 16 to 17 alone whereas refunds were made to the cancelled reserved tickets to the tune of Rs 1,84,965 up to 6 pm on March 17. According to the station authorities, the rush in the station has been reduced by almost 50 per cent.

Divisional railway manager, Guntakal, Alok Tiwari, told The Hans India that people have realised the importance of maintaining social distance and taking various precautions. Of course, a lot of impact of that is there on the passenger inflow and earnings. In Tirupati station alone, passenger traffic during March 1-17 compared from 2019 and 2020 has come down by 9.26 per cent.

Similarly, there was a 9.74 per cent drop in the earning during the same period which has come down to Rs 3.34 crore in 2020 from Rs 3.70 crore in 2019. Significantly, the major drop could be seen in the earnings of reserved tickets which has come down by 20.22 per cent compared to the 7.05 per cent of unreserved ticket earnings.

The DRM has further added that in Guntakal division, the drop in the passenger traffic of both reserved and unreserved was 15.18 per cent while the earnings came down by 23.36 per cent. The reserved ticket earnings in the division as a whole witnessed a drop by 3-.39 per cent.

A senior railway official said that, there was a huge change in the passenger traffic as well as earnings in the last 3-4 days and it may fall further in the next few days. The shopkeepers on the platforms were facing the real heat with the huge cut in passenger flow. "We have never seen this type of situation. Anticipating the huge inflow of passengers as usual, we have procured stocks of various food items and cool drinks in large numbers. If the situation continues, they may get expire and we will become helpless. Already, we could not earn the amounts to meet the maintenance expenditure also," said a shopkeeper.