The Mumbai division of the Central Railway (CR) has generated ₹65.83 crore for the year 2019-20 through its non-fare revenue (NFR) initiatives, which is the highest ever in its history. The division had earned ₹46 crore in NFR in 2018-19 and had a target of ₹65.64 crore.
The bulk of the revenue in 2019-20 came through advertising on trains, which accounted for nearly ₹17.64 crore, while outdoor advertising and rail display network (RDN) accounted for ₹10.61 crore and ₹15.54 crore respectively. Railway officials said, meanwhile, in 2018-19 the bulk of the revenue was from old commercial contracts, with around ₹5 crore being added by fresh contracts.
Until May 2018, these initiatives were being executed by a special NFR directorate, which was set up in 2014. Senior railway officials said the idea to centralise NFR had met with little enthusiasm and hence, it was decentralised. It was after this that divisions across the country, including Mumbai, introduced a series of initiatives.
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In 2019-20, it put in place a series of initiatives such as setting up of self ticketing zones and tying up with app-based cab aggregators such as Ola and Meru and delivery platforms such as Amazon. Officials said they had earned nearly ₹16.5 crore from these initiatives.
However, officials are apprehensive about the coming fiscal due to a recent Railway Board decision to appoint RailTel to float tenders and implement contracts for RDN in the future. The directive states that RailTel will not implement RDN at stations where zonal railways have already awarded contracts. RDN covers advertising inside railway stations and at present includes both static and dynamic ads on LED screens. Senior railway officials said that the notification will remove a key source of NFR contribution at the division level.