Indian Railways, the country's single largest employer, spends a third of every rupee it earns on staff wages and allowances, and most of its income came from moving goods.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's budget for 2010-11 projects 34 paisa out of every rupee earned going towards staff wages and allowances and another 13 paisa going towards meeting pension fund obligations.
Fuel is the second-biggest expenditure head with 17 per cent of revenues going towards that, as per 2008-09 figures.
Railways earned 66 per cent (or 66 paisa of every rupee) from Goods Traffic (transporting items like coal). Its earnings from passenger tickets was 27 paisa.
Banerjee has projected 6.4 per cent increase in freight earnings in 2010-11 at Rs 62,489.33 crore as against Rs 58,715.66 crore revenues from moving goods this fiscal.
Most of the freight revenue came from transporting coal - Rs 24,319.56 crore (in 2008-09), while moving cement earned it Rs 5,600.85 crore, foodgrains Rs 3,698.16 crore, fertilizer Rs 3,506.67 crore, petroleum products Rs 3,472.19 crore and Rs 3,025 crore on container services.
Despite not increasing fares, she projected a 8.6 per cent rise in earnings in passenger traffic at Rs 26,126.47 crore in 2010-11 as against Rs 24,057.03 crore this year.
Railway's depreciation reserve fund consumed 8 per cent of the revenues while it paid 6 paisa out of every rupee as dividend to the government. Lease charges and capital fund consumed four paisa each while two paisa would go to development fund.
