40 per cent seats on Ahmedabad-Mumbai route go vacant

At a time when the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project has run into a controversy, here comes a shocker - 40% seats on the trains on this route go vacant.

In the past three months, there have been 40% empty seats on the Mumbai to Ahmedabad route and 44% empty seats on the Ahmedabad to Mumbai route, according to information obtained by activist Anil Galgali under the Right to Information Act (RTI).

According to Galgali, the maximum load of passengers on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route is for sleeper class seats and it can be seen that occupancy of the upper-class seats is very poor."The railway ministry and the state governments should study the scenario. Centre's bullet train is not a viable option financially as well as from common man's view," he said in a statement.

Galgali had sought information from the Western Railway about the seat occupancy on all the trains running between Mumbai and Ahmedabad to and fro for the past three months.The Western Railway chief commercial manager Manjeet Singh provided the information from July 1, 2017, to September 30, 2017.

Out of 7,35,630 seats on the 32 mail/express trains that run from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, only 4,41,795 seats were booked. A revenue of Rs 30,16,24,623 was generated of the expected Rs 44,29,08,220, incurring a loss to the tune of Rs 14,12,83,597, in just three months.A total of 31 mail/express trains run on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai route. A total of 3,98,002 passengers travelled on these trains having a total capacity of 7,06,446 seats.

This route incurred a loss of Rs 15,78,54,489. It could generate a revenue of only Rs 26,74,56,982 as against the expected Rs 42,53,11,471.The trains running on the route such as Duranto, Shatabdi, Gujrat Mail, Bhavnagar, Saurashtra, Vivek, Bhuj, Lokshakti are included in the data provided.

The 12009 Shatabdi is the most famous and favourite train for chair car service. This train en route to Ahmedabad has a capacity or 72,696 seats out of which it managed to sell only 36,117 seats.It could garner Rs 4,11,23,086 of the total expected Rs 7,20,82,948 revenue.The executive chair car has 8,216 seats, But only 3,468 seats could garner Rs 64,14,345 of the total expected Rs 1,63,57,898.

The Shatabdi's 12010 Ahmedabad-Mumbai route story is no different.Out of total 67,392 seats, only 22,982 seats were sold and revenue garnered was Rs 2,51,41,322 in place of total expected Rs 6,39,08,988.In the case of executive chair car, only 1,469 seats were booked out of 7,505 available seats. The revenue generation was Rs 26,41,083 instead of Rs 1,45,49,714.

The position of all the other trains is more or less the same. The maximum demand for seats on this route is for sleeper class for which the Railways is not paying any attention to augment the capacity.