Indian Railways, the country’s single largest employer, spends 42 per cent of its revenue on staff wages and allowances, while almost two third of its earnings come from moving goods.

Railways in 2009—10 spent 42 paise out of every rupee it earned towards paying staff wages and allowances and another 17 paise for meeting pension fund obligations.

Fuel is the third biggest expenditure head with 16 per cent of revenues going towards that, as per 2009—10 figures.

Railways earned 65 per cent (or 65 paise of every rupee) from Goods Traffic (transporting items like coal). Its earnings from passenger tickets were 26 paise.

Ms Banerjee has projected 10 per cent increase in freight earnings in 2011—12 at Rs 68,620 crore as against Rs 62,489.33 crore revenues from moving goods this fiscal.

Most of the freight revenue came from transporting coal — Rs 24,127.77 crore (in 2009—10), while moving cement earned it Rs 5,668.27 crore, foodgrains Rs 4,358.82 crore, fertiliser Rs 3,606.37 crore, petroleum products Rs 3,473.20 crore and container services brought Rs 3,208.67 crore to its kitty.

Despite no increase in fares, she projects a 16.57 per cent rise in earnings in passenger traffic at Rs 30,456 crore in 2011—12 as against Rs 26,126.47 crore this year.

Railway’s depreciation reserve fund consumed 2 per cent of the revenues while it paid 6 paise out of every rupee as dividend to the government. Lease charges and stores consumed four paise each while nine paise has been accounted as miscellaneous expenditure.

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