On Indian Railways, occupancy pattern of trains is not uniform throughout the year and it varies over lean and peak periods. During peak rush periods, the occupancy of the trains especially on popular routes remains full whereas during lean period and on less popular routes, there is sub optimal utilization.

Traffic pattern of the trains running on Indian Railways is monitored on regular basis and to cater to additional demand, load of existing trains is augmented, special trains are run, new trains are introduced, frequency of existing trains is increased etc. subject to operational feasibility.

To provide greater accommodation for the passengers using General and non-AC Sleeper Coaches, the extant policy regarding composition of Mail/Express trains provides for 12 (Twelve) General class & Sleeper class non-AC coaches and 08 (eight) AC-Coaches, in a train of 22 coaches, thereby providing greater accommodation for the passengers using General and non-AC Sleeper Coaches.

In addition to Mail/Express trains, Indian Railways also operate unreserved non-AC passenger trains / MEMU / EMU etc. for affordable travel.

Presently, there are about 79,000 coaches being utilized for running train services. The details are as under:     

Class	No. of coaches
General and non-AC Sleeper	56,000 (70% of total)
AC coaches	23,000
Total	79,000

Indian Railways have also introduced modern State-of the Art fully Non-AC Amrit Bharat trains. These trains have advanced features like Semi-Permanent couplers for jerk free travel, horizontal sliding windows, foldable snack table and bottle holders, mobile holders etc. These trains comprise of 12 Sleeper Class Coaches and 8 General Class coaches.

To generate additional accommodation for different segments of passengers, additional coaches are also added to existing trains on a permanent and temporary basis. Details of additional coaches attached on a permanent basis during the last two years are as under:

Year	Additional coaches attached
2023-24	872
2024-25 (Till Feb 25)	983

With a view to augment the accommodation and for the benefit of passengers travelling in unreserved coaches, about 1,200 General Class coaches have been attached in the Mail/Express trains operating with LHB coaches during the current financial year 2024-25. Keeping in view increased demand of the passengers travelling by non-AC coaches, IR has planned to manufacture 17,000 General Class/Sleeper Class Coaches.

In addition to the various types of regular trains, Indian Railways also operates Special train services during festivals, holidays, etc. to cater to the extra needs of passengers. The details of special trains operated during the year 2024 and year 2025 (till February, 2025) are as under:

Event	No. of train trips	No. of Passengers served
Maha Kumbh-2025	17,340	4.24 cr
Durga Pooja/ Deepawali / Chhath, 2024	7,990	1.1 cr
Summer vacation, 2024	12,919	1.8 cr
Holi, 2024	604	8.6 lakh

This information was given by the Union Minister of Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

*****

Dharmendra Tewari/Shatrunjay Kumar

(Release ID: 2113874) Visitor Counter : 488