The Cash-strapped Railways on Tuesday unveiled several policies which can fill its coffers from passengers and freight revenue which has been on decline. The non-fare revenue (NFR) policy envisages various schemes for revenue-yielding activities such as renting out less-crowded platforms for wedding or teaching purposes across the country, including train branding, rail radio scheme and using platforms for installing ATMs etc.
With a target of raising bout Rs 2,000 crore, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launched initiatives such as like outdoor advertisements, content on demand, branding of trains, Non-fare Revenue Policy, ATM Policy and initiatives promoting ease of ticketing through digital transactions (for reserved as well as unreserved passengers).
Speaking on the occasion, Prabhu said new innovative ideas are brainstormed for increasing the non fare revenues of Indian Railways and many policy initiatives have now been taken. “long-term sustainability is not possible with revenue from just freight and passenger fare. We have to explore non-fare revenue. It is a new revenue stream and part of the Rail Budget proposal. We have set up a new non-fare directorate for it. Since April, our earnings from NFR has gone up by 41 per cent but we want to increase it more,” Prabhu said.
Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain, Railway Board Chairman A K Mital, RITES CMD Rajeev Mehrotra, IRCTC CMD AK Manocha, Railway Board Executive Director (NFR) Ranjan Thakur and other senior officials were also present on the occasion. Gohain said that Non Fare Revenue efforts of Indian Railways will bring in enough revenue to meet the shortfall in other areas.. Prabhu and Gohain also released a documentary film on Jammu Kashmir Railway Network.
Highlighting the salient points of the NFR policy, Thakur said the policy will offer branding of trains by allowing internal and external advertisement and product sampling on trains on a long-term basis to big players leading to higher realisation of earnings. “There will be distribution of sample products free of cost for gauging passenger reaction to the product. However, no sale of products will be allowed in trains,” Thakur said during his presentation at Rail Bhawan.
The Railways also launched a new ticketing App, IRCTC Rail Connect, to facilitate booking of train tickets in a faster and easier way. Equipped with latest technology, the new App also makes possible booking of tatkal ticket, ladies quota, premium tatkal quota booking and current reservation. The App developed by CRIS is based on a next generation e-ticketing system.