Come the time of Chhath Pooja and all of the trains going to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are overcrowded with passengers struggling to get inside compartments and serpentine queues on the station for common tickets.
Many, in desperation to succeed in their locations earlier than Chhath, even find yourself travelling within the bogs of trains, in cramped situations for greater than 12 hours at a stretch.
Amongst these pictures of crowded stations and passenger misery, there’s a viral declare on social media stating that the Indian Railways has over time lowered the variety of common and sleeper coaches in particular trains operated throughout the festive season to generate extra income.
The declare being made is that earlier, an ordinary 22-coach prepare would have 4 common coaches, which has been lowered to 2, and the sleeper coaches, which have been seven, have been lowered to 2. The claims additional acknowledged that the discount within the variety of coaches is what’s resulting in overcrowding within the trains going to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
India At this time has accessed a doc that confirmed the usual composition in accordance with which the Railways is working its particular passenger trains forward and throughout the festive season.
India At this time has fact-checked these claims and located them to be false. We have now accessed the paperwork that present that the usual composition of coaches in a prepare, which includes a complete of twenty-two coaches, stays the identical. There are 6-7 sleeper coaches and 4 common coaches in an ordinary prepare. The quantity has not modified.
Information confirmed that the variety of 3AC coaches is six, and never 10 as is being claimed on social media.
There are two coaches of 2AC compartment and one coach of 1AC class. The final coaches stay 4, whereas the sleeper coaches, that are non-AC, are 6-7 coaches within the festive trains being operated.
DATA WISE
The full variety of prepare journeys deliberate until December 2023 is 6,754. That is 2.5 instances greater than final yr’s journeys of particular trains – 2614 (October 1- December 31) in 2022.
To this point this yr, Indian Railways has run 2,423 particular trains for Diwali and Chhath Pooja.
This yr, 36 lakh folks have travelled from the start of the festive season and the quantity is roughly double that of final yr.
The seating capability of a common coach, on common, is 100 passengers, whereas non-AC sleeper coaches, in addition to 3-tier AC coaches, have a passenger capability of 72 every. The two-tier AC can accommodate 48 passengers in a single coach (bogey).
PASSENGER CARRYING CAPACITY
On the present price of passenger stream, the utmost variety of passengers being carried within the common coaches is 14 lakh and in sleeper coaches, it’s 17 lakh. Whereas solely 3.4 lakh persons are travelling in 3AC, 1.13 lakh passengers journey in 2AC.
INCREASED PASSENGER FLOW
As per knowledge collected from April to October 2023, 95.3 per cent of the passengers travelled usually and non-AC sleepers whereas solely 4.7 per cent travelled in AC coaches.
This yr, 372 crore passengers travelled in sleeper, non-AC and common coaches — 38 crore greater than final yr.
Out of those 372 crore passengers, 18.2 crore travelled in AC coaches, which is 3.1 crore additional in comparison with final yr.
The full variety of passengers elevated to 41.1 crore. In that, a 92.5 per cent improve was noticed in non-AC passengers (common & sleeper class).