Multi-purpose kiosks at 400 rail stations

Nearly 400 railway stations across the country will now have multipurpose stalls and quick service restaurants that will offer high-end services and products to passengers. By doing so, the Indian railways will generate a revenue of around Rs 200 crore annually.

The quick service restaurants (QSR) and modular multipurpose stalls (MPS) at all A1 and A category stations will facilitate the passengers to buy items required during the travel under one roof and simultaneously ensuring decongestion of platforms by optimum utilisation of the available space on stations and platforms.

“The Railways is introducing a new policy of multipurpose against existing single purpose stalls at stations where each stall can provide multiple services required by passengers, including milk products and medicines,” a senior railway official said.

As of now, the Railways receives around a total of Rs 100 crore annually as licence fee from small catering vending units. Existing facilities such as Jan Ahaar, catering stalls, refreshment rooms, would cover catering and other travelling needs of the passengers at an affordable cost. The QSR and MPS would ensure availability of higher end services to passengers who wish to purchase catering and other items of their choice at market driver prices. Railway minister Suresh Prabhu has emphasised during his Budget speech on developing models to monetise the non-fare revenue potentials of the Indian Railways.

“This is an area that can contribute in increasing non-fare revenue by providing high-end services for the travelling needs of the passengers who are willing to pay for quality services. We are expecting MPS and ASR could generate additional revenue of Rs 200 crore annually,” the official said.

The Railways has already decided to allow companies to advertise through display network at railway stations across the country. It has been planned to make Railway Display Network operational across the railway stations of the country, which envisages around 100,000 digital display screens across the 2,000 railway stations.

According to railways, there is a huge potential of up to Rs 10,000 crore for earnings through advertising at coaches, wagons and stations among others. With its massive network consisting of 13,000 trains per day — 63,000km of track and carrying of 23 million passengers that is equivalent to population of Australia — the Railways can use it for revenue generation.