Train booking starts at 8am, 90 days before the date of travel. At 0800 hrs he found that there are 600 odd tickets available on train no 1015 (Kushinagar Express). Immediately, he keyed in his credit card number to book the ticket.
After the credit card was validated, when the ticket was issued, it was found that the ticket had a waiting list of over 500!
In the brief period of around a minute, not only were the 600 tickets issued but an extra 500 tickets were sold!
A dejected Sharmaji decided to cancel the ticket. He was charged Rs. 20 for each ticket he cancelled. As he had booked six tickets, he had to shell out Rs.120 for cancelling wait listed tickets.
If we assume that there will be atleast 250 cancellations per train (an estimate on the lower side). Railways make around Rs. 5000 (at Rs. 20/- per cancelled ticket) every day per train for cancellation.
Now the Indian Railways run around 9000 trains per day. This gives us Rs. 45000000 ( Rs. 4.5 Crores).
There are 30 days in a month. The cancellation charges collected will be Rs. 135 crores.
12 months a year should give us Rs. 1620 crores for doing nothing but issuing and cancelling tickets!
Remember these estimates are on the lower side. Actual figures could be lot more than calculated. Now you know how railways make a profit.
We can understand a cancellation charge being levied on confirmed tickets. But for waitlisted tickets, such a huge charge is criminal. With no competition, railways is indulging in a monopoly practise that the general public may not be aware of.
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