The Indian Railways collected more than Rs 9,000 crore as charges for ticket cancellation and non-cancellation of wait-listed tickets between 2017 and 2020.
This has been revealed by the Indian Railways in response to an RTI application, say reports.
According to reports, Kota-based RTI activist Sujeet Swami had filed an RTI application seeking information on the earning of the Indian Railways for the last three years.
The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) in response to the RTI application said from January 1, 2017, to January 31, 2020, the railway authorities had collected over Rs 9,000 crore as charges for ticket cancellation and non-cancellation of wait-listed tickets.
While the Indian Railways had earned over Rs 4,335 crore from the railway passengers whose wait-listed tickets were not cancelled in the last three years, over Rs 4,684 crore was earned by the railways as cancellation fees for confirmed tickets.
It has been reported that in both cases, the maximum of earning made by the Indian railways was from sleeper class tickets, followed by Third AC travellers.
It has been revealed that more passengers take help of the Internet to book railway tickets and only half of the passengers go to the railway ticket counters to get their tickets booked.
As per reports, in the last three years, over 145 crore passengers purchased tickets through the Internet while more than 74 crore people went to railway counters.
RTI Activist Swami also filed a plea in the Rajasthan High Court alleging that the reservation policy of the Indian Railways is ‘discriminatory’.
He alleged that the difference in policies for online and counter reservation system brings unnecessary financial and mental burden on the passengers.
The RTI activist sought discontinuance of the system for giving relief to the railway passengers and stop “unfair revenue generation” by the railways.