The Indian Railways has set a target operating ratio of 92.8 per cent for 2018-19, as compared to 96 per cent last year.
The operating ratio shows how much of revenue goes into meeting expenses. Lower the ratio better it is for the railways.
The excess of revenue over expenditure in 2018-19 is Rs 12,990 crore. It is estimated that the total revenue receipts in 2018-19 will be increased by 7 per cent to Rs 2,01,090 crore.
Asked about the target of achieving 85 per cent operating ratio by 2022, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said that it can be achieved only through efficiency.
"We intend to achieve this target through increased capacity, efficient planning. Once the signalling system is changed, that itself will have a transformational impact both on safety and on capacity," he said.
The railways' Gross Traffic Receipts are also expected to increase by 7 per cent to Rs 2,00,840 crore. Sundry other earnings are also likely increase by 49 per cent to Rs 20,790 crore.
The ministry has high hopes on freight earnings with an estimated increase of 51 MT in 2018-19.
The incremental loading is expected to be 45 MT in April-January 2018, over the same period last year. In January itself, the railways has seen an incremental loading of 6 MT.
All these factors indicate towards sustainable railway operations, officials said.
The financial year of 2017-18 has witnessed a reversal of the tendency of low growth in freight loading over the previous two years.
The total revenue expenditure in 2018-19 is set to increase by 4 per cent to Rs 1,88,100 crore.
Other major components like ordinary working expenses (Rs 1,38,000 crore), appropriation to DRF (Rs 500 crore) and appropriation to Pension Fund from Revenue (Rs 47,500 crore) are included.
To reduce accumulated backlog in capacity creation, the government is drastically scaling up investment by almost three times to Rs 1,46,500 crore in 2018-19 against Rs 53,989 crore in 2013-14, a statement from the railways said.
This is 22 per cent higher than 2017-18 (RE), and includes budgetary support of Rs 53,060 crore, internal resources of Rs 11,500 crore. Indian Railway Finance Corporation to raise Rs 28,500 crore, Institutional Finance (LIC) to support with Rs 26,440 crore and investment through PPP of Rs 27,000 crore.
The government has provided Rs 19,40 crore towards re- imbursement of losses on operation of strategic lines and Rs 88 crore towards reimbursement of operational cost of e- ticketing to IRCTC.
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