The report also says that the Operating Ratio of 98.44% is the worst in the last ten years.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on Monday tabled a report in Parliament on Railways' Financial Health and Performance for the year ending 31 March 2018.
The report focused on the financial health of the Railways based on various parameters. It contained audit observations on the impact of concessions allowed to passengers on Railways earnings and the effectiveness of the existing internal control mechanism to check misuse of concessions.
The audit analysis revealed a declining trend of revenue surplus and the share of internal resources in the capital expenditure. The net revenue surplus decreased by 66.10% from Rs 4,913 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 1,665 crore in 2017-18. The share of internal resources in total capital expenditure also reduced to 3.01% in 2017-18. This resulted in greater dependence on Gross Budgetary Support and Extra Budgetary Resources.
The report also says that the Operating Ratio of 98.44% is the worst in the last ten years.
"Indian Railways, in fact, would have ended up with a negative balance of Rs 5,676.2 crore instead of a surplus of Rs 1,665.6 crore but for the advance received from NTPC and IRCON. Exclusion of this advance would otherwise have increased the Operating Ratio to 102.66%," said the national auditor.
The appropriation to Depreciation Reserve Fund also decreased significantly by 68% in 2017-18 while under-provisioning for depreciation resulted in piling up of 'throw forward' of works estimated at Rs 1,01,194 crore.
CAG further added in the reports that "Indian Railways was unable to meet its operational cost of passenger services and other coaching services. Almost 95% of the profit from freight traffic was utilized to compensate for the loss on the operation of passenger and other coaching services. One of the contributing factors in this regard has been free and concessional fare tickets/ passes and Privilege Ticket Orders (PTOs) to various beneficiaries."
A review of the impact of concessions allowed to passengers revealed that 89.7% of the revenue forgone towards concessions was on account of concession to senior citizens and Privilege Pass/PTO holders. The response to 'Give Up' scheme from the senior citizen passengers was not encouraging either. The annual rate of growth in terms of number of passengers travelling in AC classes in all the categories of concessions was higher than that of the non-AC classes.
Several instances of misuse of passes and irregular grant of concessions on medical certificates were also noticed, says the report.
Even the Passenger Reservation System lacks adequate validation controls to validate the age of freedom fighters and to prevent irregular multiple booking on the same privilege pass.
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