New Delhi: IRCTC's Tejas Express has made a profit of around ₹70 lakh till October this year while earning a revenue of nearly ₹3.70 crore through sale of tickets, sources said, signalling a steady start for the Railways' first "privately" run train.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation's Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express is part of the Railways' bid to develop 50 railway stations of world-class standards and allowing private passenger train operators to run 150 trains on its network.

The train has run with an average occupancy of 80-85 per cent since it began operations on October 5, the sources said.

From October 5 to October 28 (21 days, as the train runs six days a week), the expenditure incurred by IRCTC in running the train was around ₹3 crore, they said.

The Railway subsidiary, which spent an average of nearly ₹14 lakh per day to run the state-of-the-art train, earned around ₹17.50 lakh daily from passenger fares.

The Tejas Express on the Lucknow-Delhi route is the Railways' first experience of running a train by non-railway operator and its own subsidiary IRCTC.

The IRCTC has a slew of benefits worked out for its passengers -- combination meals, free insurance of up to ₹25 lakh and compensation in case of delays.

The government last month constituted a special task force comprising a group of secretaries to expedite the initiative on private train operation and station redevelopment projects. However, the first meeting of the group is yet to take place.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Share Via