economy · 2026-08-27
Your Train Ticket Is Half Paid For
Photo: Bahnfrend / Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Your train ticket pays about 55 paise of every rupee it costs to carry you. The goods train pays the rest, and in 2022-23 it could not manage even that.
Who pays the other 45 paise?
Freight customers. Railways prices goods traffic above cost and passenger fares below it, so the coal, cement and steel moving across the network pay for the person in the seat. In 2022-23 freight earned ₹54,784 crore while passenger services lost ₹60,041 crore, so it did not even cover the hole.
What does that do to the price of goods?
It raises them. Indian rail freight rates sit among the highest in the world because of the surcharge, so cargo that belongs on a train goes by truck instead. The country pays for that twice, in diesel and in road wear, and the Economic Survey named it a distortion this year.
Can fares just be raised?
That is the actual constraint. A passenger fare is a political price rather than a commercial one, so the subsidy stays and the freight surcharge stays with it. Watch whether any government prices a fare rise in a year it does not have to face voters.