Title - 5 years of Gujjar, Jat stir has cost Railways crores

The Gujjar and Jat agitations and protest actions during the past five years have cost the Railways crores, with losses in the Kota Division alone being Rs. 14.77 crore. Besides, nearly 25 lakh passengers suffered on account of cancellations, replies from the West Central Railway secured through RTI applications reveal.Incidentally, till now not much was known of the losses to the various divisions, besides the Northern Railway, which had claimed last year that its losses could well be above the Rs. 200-crore mark.

RTI queries
In response to the RTI applications filed by Delhi-based advocate Ravinder Raj, the West Central Railway said the loss suffered by it during the past five years due to these agitations was Rs.14,77,32,592. And this is just the loss on cancellation of reserved tickets, and doesn't take into account the loss in revenue if the prospective general category passengers are also included.The agitations, which went on for days, led to massive cancellations. The “number of innocent traumatised passengers/families” who faced multifaceted harassment due to cancellation or diversion of trains during the last five years was 25,85,292, not including general category passengers.

The figures released to Mr. Raj earlier this year show that because of the cancellation of a single special train (09735), which used to leave from Jaipur, on account of the Gujjar agitation, the loss was Rs. 7.32 lakh — Rs. 5.2 lakh due to cancellation of 1,002 reserved tickets, Rs. 1.3 lakh due to cancellation of 253 internet tickets and nearly Rs. 82,000 on account of unreserved tickets.

As for year-wise loss, the Railway said it didn't have the records or figures for 2006-07 and 2007-08. However, it said, in 2008-09, Rs. 1.67 crore was lost due to the Gujjar agitation.

While there was no agitation in 2009-10, the following year, 2010-11, saw protests and blockades by both Jats and Gujjars. A sum of Rs. 1.13 crore was lost on account of the Jat agitation, Rs.11 lakh during bandhs and strikes, and Rs. 4 lakh due to the Gujjar agitation in this fiscal.

The Railways incurred losses during bandhs and agitations in Uttar Pradesh, apart from Rajasthan and Haryana. In response to another query by Mr. Raj, the North Central Railway said 14511 Nauchandi Express, running between Allahabad and Saharanpur, had remained cancelled for a full week last November, and consequently the Allahabad zone lost nearly Rs. 39.28 lakh.