Niti to Indian Railways: Rationalise fare structures, subsidies to generate revenues

Government think-tank NITI Aayog Wednesday said the Indian Railways needs to rationalise fare structures and subsidies and monetise assets to generate revenues.

The NITI Aayog which unveiled a comprehensive national Strategy for New India, defining clear objectives for 2022-23, said the railways should revisit its pricing model to make the passenger and freight segments sustainable.

"Freight tariffs should be competitive with the cost of road transportation," it said in its report, Strategy for New India @ 75.

It also said that by 2022-23, India should have a rail network that is not only efficient, reliable and safe, but also cost-effective and accessible, both with respect to the movement of people and goods.

Listing goals for the national transporter, NITI Aayog has said that it should increase the speed of infrastructure creation from the present 7 km/day to 19 km/day by 2022-23, achieve "100 per cent" electrification of broad gauge track in the same period and also increase the average speed of freight and mail/express trains to 50 km/hr (from about 24 km/hr in 2016-17) and 80 km/hr (from about 60 km/hr), respectively.

It has also said the railways should enhance service delivery, achieving 95 per cent on-time arrivals by 2022-23.

"By 2022-23, the railways should have a freight load of 1.9 billion tonnes and an improved modal share of 40 per cent of freight movement from the current level of 33 per cent. Increase the share of non-fare revenues in total revenue to 20 per cent," it said.