The railways suffered a loss of over Rs 26 crore in 2017-18 in operating the Nilgiri Mountain Rail Service, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, said Manoj Sinha, Union Minister of State for Railways.

Sinha said, “in Lok Sabha that the expenditure for running the Nilgiri Mountain Rail Service in Tamil Nadu was Rs 28 crore in 2017-18 while the earnings were Rs 1.82 crore.”

In 2016-17, the expenditure for the rail service was Rs 26.74 crore while earnings were Rs 1.99 crore.

The Nilgiri Hill Railways is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Indian Railways operates the Nilgiri Mountain Rail Service for facilitating tourists of this catchment area.

Sinha said, “though Indian Railways incurs losses on operation of this service, there is no proposal to compensate the losses incurred on operating this heritage service.”