Indian Railways passenger traffic has reduced by about 50% since 2010, claims a recent X thread. This substantial drop has prompted an IRS officer to call for free travel for women passengers to attract passengers back to the railways.

The IRS officer, Nethrapal, commented on a Twitter thread by journalist Pankaj Pachuri, who had compiled data from various government sources highlighting the decline in passenger traffic. Pachuri also questioned why there are still massive crowds in trains despite the launch of new trains.

Nethrapal suggested that offering free travel to women passengers could be a discount, with only male passengers paying fares when travelling with female companions. He wrote, “Very Interesting to see the passenger traffic revenues has dipped substantially. That means people have shifted to other modes of transport. This again adds value to my previous tweet that there is a strong case for providing free travel to women passengers. Now this will be like a discount. For example, if 2 men and 1 women travel, the waiver will be only for female passengers. There is a good case for waiving of female passenger train fares on Railways”.

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Very Interesting to see the passenger traffic revenues has dipped substantially. That means people have shifted to other modes of transport.
This again adds value to my previous tweet that there is a strong case for providing free travel to women passengers.
Now this will be like… https://t.co/Qn5pM3DdSf— Nethrapal (@nethrapal) November 26, 2023

He believes this could be an effective incentive to encourage more women to use the railways. The Twitter thread also notes that the peak traffic month for Indian Railways was back in 2014. Since then, the traffic has either reduced month-on-month or has remained stagnant.