Indian Railways actual Revenue earning method

While everyone of us praise Indian railways and their ministers for not increasing the Train fares for more than 6 years and the railways made a huge profit under Lalu Prasad Yadav, it is noteworthy to look at the other side of the Railways. Does it really Holds good that Railways are making profit without increasing the ticket rates? I smell the otherwise situation here. In reality, after the advent of Indian Railways Online Passenger reservation system (IRCTC), money spent by the users are pretty higher than it actually goes and here I come up with a small calculation.

Journey Between Chennai and Bangalore in a Night train costs you Rs. 173 in Express and Rs. 193 in super fast trains (Sleeper coach). But do we end up paying just that amount if we book tickets through IRCTC? Let us look at the fact:

Ticket cost Rs.193 + IRCTC service charge Rs.10 + Creditcard/Bank service charge Rs.12 and overall = Rs. 215. We end up in paying 22Rs more and if we cancel a confirmed ticket Rs. 40 has to be shelled out from your pocket.

This is the regular reservation procedure and around 40% of the seats are reserved for Tatkal quota for which a traveler needs to pay Rs. 75 more in case of off season time and Rs.150 in case of season time. (Around 280 tickets are allocated for tatkal quota in Chennai-Bangalore Mail). So the tatkal charge in the train comes at a rate :
Rs.215 + 150 = Rs 365.

If a confirmed tatkal ticket is cancelled 24 Hours before the scheduled departure of the Train then the Refund is: Rs.0 (No refund). If cancelled between 24-63.5 Hours, then 25% of the amount excluding the Tatkal charge would be refunded. i.e., Rs.150 will be gone and 25% of Rs. 193 = Rs.48 would be refunded.

If you book a ticket for Rs.365, then the refund amount is Rs.48 in tatkal scheme. Even while cancelling Wait Listed tatkal tickets, Rs.20 will be deducted as Cancellation charge.

Another strategy is the Manipulation of Wait Listed tickets and allocation of seats in the name of RAC but claiming the full amount of sleeper class charge.

It is a regular trend in Chennai bangalore mail that the wait list up to WL120 will be getting cleared easily and after WL 15, most of it will be allocated into RAC's where 2 needs to share one Side Lower Berth. (Both the users would have paid the full amount for a sleeper class). This makes the railway get double profit.

The same case is applicable for AC 3 and 2 Tiers at a much higher rates. This is one of the best profit making strategies by the railways but they boast to be one of the passengers friendly Government to be quite benevolent to the people.

The last sensible and best minister of Railways was Shri Nitish Kumar and it helped LALU to utilize upon his favour when he took over the turn.