TIRUPATI: Despite the adverse impact of the third wave of Covid19, the Tirupati railway station has shown significant improvement on its performance indicators. There was a 200 per cent increase in passenger revenue in fiscal 2021-22.
Passenger revenue rose from Rs 66.50 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 199.83 crore in 2021-22. This is an increase of 200.49 per cent after the station had a minimal performance in the past as a result of the suspension of train services during 2020-21, the first year of the pandemic.
Daily passenger number saw a growth of 71.09 per cent -- from 8,782 average footfalls per day during 2020-21 to 15,026 per day during 2021-22 despite the non-operation of several passenger trains.
The latest figures show that the temple city’s station is slowly limping back to normalcy.
The station is one of the important revenue spinning stations for the SCR. In 2019-20, it registered a record passenger revenue of Rs 336.2 crore with 83,558 average footfalls per day. This dropped to Rs 66.51 crores and 8,782 footfalls by 2020-21, said senior divisional commercial manager (DCM), Guntakal division, Prashanth Kumar.
Speaking to the Deccan Chronicle, he said the number of trains has been increased gradually after the Covid-19 spread subsided. At present, the Tirupati station is seeing 110 trains on average per day, including 48 daily and 62 non-daily trains. In the pre-Covid days, it used to handle 130 trains per day including 60 daily and 70 non-daily.
In the past few months, the Tirupati station has again become one of the busiest stations in the SCR, with the highest passenger revenue growth, thanks to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams that had lifted most Covid-linked restrictions on darshan of Lord Balaji atop Tirumala hills.
Railway officials said the railways is likely to resume the services of more passenger trains. The railway board is also working on reviving several cancelled trains in the next few days, and introducing summer specials based on the passenger rush.
