New Delhi: In a tweet, the Ministry of Railways said that Indian Railways is “ascending new crests in passengers carried”, sharing an image which said there was a “whopping upswing of more than 100%”. The tweet added that from carrying 2,649.90 million people in the fiscal year 2021-22 (until January 10, 2022), the Railways has carried 5,321.69 million people in FY 2022-23 (until January 10, 2023).Indian Railways is ascending new crests in passengers carried with a whopping upswing of more than 100%! pic.twitter.com/ZwAlf0N6Y0— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) February 24, 2023While the railways has indeed doubled the volume of passengers it has carried in the span of two years, the ministry’s phrasing that it was “ascending new crests” is untrue. According to statistics available on the ministry’s own website, the largest volume of passengers that the railways transported was 8,439 million in FY 2018-19 – which is 3,000 million passengers more than it has ferried until January 10, 2023.After peaking at 8,439 million passengers in 2018-19, the railways ferried 8,086 million passengers in FY 2019-20 – before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the pandemic, the numbers of passengers that the railways carried fell drastically to 1,250 million in 2020-21. It rebounded strongly in 2021-22, nearly tripling to 3,519 million passengers.Since the railways says it has carried 5321.69 million passengers in the first three quarters of FY 2022-23, it is unlikely that the number for the entire fiscal will be higher than the peak it achieved in FY 2018-19. If the law of averages is applied, the figure for the current fiscal is likely to be around 7,100 million passengers, much lower than the 8,439 that it reported in 2018-19.In short, the passenger traffic on railways is rebounding after the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown, but has still not reached the pre-pandemic level.The Indian Railways’ yearbooks also show that the number of passenger service vehicles has increased from 67,604 in FY 2018-19 – when the peak number of passengers carried was achieved – to 74,744 in 2021-22.
