Indian Railways strives to provide affordable transportation services for both passengers and goods. Evaluation of various alternatives for rationalization of passenger fare and freight tariff is a continuous and ongoing process.

To keep the freight rate competitive, the freight rates have not been revised since 2018 despite increase in input cost over the years.

Passenger fares have been rationalized w.e.f. 01st July 2025 after a gap of more than 5 years. The increase in fares is very low, ranging from half paise per km to two paise per km for premium classes. The details of the fare revision are as follows:

i) No increase in general class up to 500 km and thereafter half paisa increase in fare per passenger per kilometer.

ii) Half paisa increase in fare per passenger per kilometer in Sleeper Class Ordinary and First-Class Ordinary.

iii) 01 paisa increase per passenger per kilometer in Non-AC classes in Mail Express.

iv) 02 paisa increase per passenger per kilometer in reserved AC- Classes.

To maintain affordability for low and middle income families, the fares for MST (Monthly Season Ticket) and Suburban travel have not been revised.

Last year, I would like to inform you that Railways has given about ₹ 60,000 Cr worth of subsidy so that passenger transport can remain affordable. Compared to neighbouring countries, India is providing the most affordable transportation to our passengers: Hon’ble MR Shri… pic.twitter.com/n6ZkSGI0eU

— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) December 10, 2025

Measures taken to increase in Freight Transportation

Indian Railways has taken several measures to enhance the freight loading and revenue which includes:

•    To increase the network capacity, rail network expansion has been taken up in a big way by construction of new lines, multi tracking of existing lines and gauge conversion of existing lines.  The details of new tracks laid during the 10 years are as under:-

 

Period	New Tracks Commissioned
2009-14	7,599 km
2014-25	34,428 km

Further as on 01.04.25, there are 431(154 New Line, 33 Gauge Conversion and 244 Doubling) projects sanctioned.  The summary of which is as under:-

Category	No. of Projects	Total Length (km)	Length completed till Mar’25 (Km)	Balance length (Km)	Cost (Cr.)
New lines	154	16,142	3,036	13,105	3,77,389
Gauge conversion	33	4,180	2,997	1,183	43,820
Doubling/Multi tracking	244	15 644	6,736	8,909	2,53,711
Total	431	35,966	12,769	23,197	6,74,920

 

•    Removing bottlenecks in operations by yard remodeling, construction of bypass/chord lines, rail flyovers etc.

•   The construction of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) from Ludhiana to Sonnagar (1337 Km) and Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Terminal (JNPT) to Dadri (1506 Km) has been taken up. Out of total 2843 kms, 2741 route kms (96.4%) has been commissioned and operational.

•     Indian Railways has taken up electrification of Railway lines in a mission mode. So far, about 99.1% of Broad Gauge (BG) network has been electrified. A comparison of electrification before and after 2014 is as follows:-

Period	Route Kilometre
Before 2014	21,801
2014-25	46,900

•   Procurement of Wagons and Locomotives: To increase freight carrying capacity, large numbers of IR wagons have been procured and locomotives have been manufactured. During 2014 to 2025, about 2 lakh wagons have been procured and more than 10,000 locomotives have been added for increasing freight loading and mobility.

• Industry participation in investment in General Purpose Wagons, Special Purpose/High-Capacity wagons and Automobile carrier wagons for cement, oil, steel, fly-ash, automobile etc. So far, around 240 rakes of special purpose wagons, 374 rakes of general-purpose wagons and 48 rakes of automobile wagons have been inducted.

•    Under the ‘Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT)’ policy so far, 118 new GCTs have been commissioned, with an estimated traffic capacity of 192 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). In addition, for improvement of freight and parcel terminals from the financial year 2023-24 onwards, an amount of ₹14,500 crore has been allocated.

•   A “Bulk Cement Terminal Policy” for setting up terminals on Railway land has been launched recently as part of Railway reforms for facilitating Bulk Cement transportation.

•     Ensuring increased availability of rakes/wagons against demand.

•   Increasing the loadability for carrying additional traffic per wagon. Length of freight trains has also been increased to increase throughput per train

•   Use of Information Technology in freight operations to improve monitoring and utilization of assets.

•     Induction of higher horsepower locomotives.

•    Improvement in maintenance practices of wagons and locomotives resulting in increased availability of loco and rolling stock for traffic use.

•     Improvement in track and signaling standards to carry higher volume of traffic.

•     Training of staff and officers to adopt the new technology and management practices.

Because of the above measures, the freight loading has increased from 1,233 MT in 2020-21 to 1617 MT in 2024-25.  During 2024-25, IR has transported 1617 MT thus becoming second largest freight carrying Railways in the world.

This information was provided by the Union Minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, in replies to questions in Lok Sabha today.

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Dharmendra Tewari/ Dr. Nayan Solanki/ Manik Sharma

(रिलीज़ आईडी: 2201815) आगंतुक पटल : 233