Railways revenue up 18 % in first quarter of FY09

New Delhi, Jul 21 (UNI) Railways earnings went up by 18.04 per cent to Rs 19,549.29 crore in the first quarter of current fiscal as compared to Rs 16,561.44 crore in the April-June period a year ago.

Its freight earnings increased to Rs 13,470.11 crore, up 22.05 per cent from Rs 11,036.23 crore recorded in the comparable quarter in 2007-08.

The revenue from passenger traffic, however, registered a modest growth of 9.96 per cent in the first three months to Rs 5,342.17 crore as against Rs 4,858.07 crore during the same period in the previous fiscal, an official statement said today.

As many as 1,739.33 million passangers were booked by the railway in the first quarter this year as compared to 1,649.04 million booked during the same period last year, an increase of 5.48 per cent.

In the suburban and non-suburban sectors, the number of passengers booked during April-June 2008 were 916.22 million and 823.11 million compared to 883.45 million and 765.59 million during the same period last year, an increase of 3.71 per cent and 7.51 per cent respectively.

UNI SAA MP CS1524