At Rs 1,300 crore, Chennai Central station third highest grossing in India

CHENNAI: Dr MGR Chennai Central in Southern Railway (SR) has emerged as the third highest grossing railway station in the country with a revenue from originating passengers hovering around Rs 1,299 crore.

As per the Railway Board (RB) order on categorisation of railway stations, Central station has netted Rs 1,299.31 crore (Rs 131.73 crore from unreserved passengers) from earnings from originating passengers in the 2023-24 fiscal.

One of the three NSG-I (Non suburban grade category) stations, Chennai Central has recorded a footfall of 3.059 crore passengers (number of originating passengers), which included 1.53 crore unreserved passengers last year. It trails behind Howrah (Easter Railway), which generated Rs 1,692.39 crore, and New Delhi station (Northern Railway) which topped the chart with a whopping Rs 3,337.66 crore.

In SR, Egmore (NSG-I category) has grossed the second maximum revenue in terms of originating passengers with Rs 600.28 crore. Though Tambaram terminus is the only other NSG-I category station in the SR zone, it has only grossed Rs 246.77 crore. Coimbatore station, a NSG-II category station, in the Salem division, has earned a revenue of Rs 345.32 crore from originating passengers. Significantly, Tambaram has recorded a footfall of 3.27 crore originating passengers, against the 1.95 crore in Egmore.

As per the order issued by Pritha Devrani, deputy director traffic (Commercial. G-I), railway board, 8,809 stations were categorised based on the data received from all zonal railways. According to the RB order, around 28 stations in the country have been categorised as NSG-I on the basis of passenger earnings (PRS + UTS) and the outward passengers handled at stations for 2023-24.

Categorisation of stations is done every five years. The SR has 727 stations, including 20 NSG-II, 75 suburban category and 120 halt category stations.