Metro Rail Hyderabad reports rise in revenue including fare collection

L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad reports increased revenue, reduced losses, and plans for open-loop ticketing system.

L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH) has announced increased revenue, reduced losses and also received ₹800 crore as ‘soft loan’ from the Telangana government in the last financial year of 2023-24 ending on March 31.

The firm, which has built and runs the Hyderabad Metro Rail, has stated that the losses have come down to ₹555.04 crore in 2023-24 as against ₹1,315.94 crore in 2022-23, or a decrease of 58%. The revenues have been on an upward curve with ₹1,399.31 crore as against ₹682.53 crore or an increase of 105%, according to the annual report.

Revenues from the metro rail system and others have been ₹611.48 crore while it has been ₹796.33 crore from the operation of the operational Transit Oriented Development (TOD) assets, advertising, retail activities at stations, rentals of optic fibre cables, right of way for telecom towers, etc.

Fare revenue has increased from ₹458.20 crore to ₹602.98 crore, rental income from ₹110.42 crore to ₹96.50 crore, advertising revenue from ₹67.28 crore to ₹81.06 crore, real estate undertaking ₹511.73 crore from zero and other revenue like reimbursement of utility charges and common area maintenance has been ₹82.77 crore from ₹54.79 crore.

The annual report said the operating expenses have increased slightly from ₹350.35 crore to ₹400.06 crore. There have been no payment defaults to the financial lenders and the soft loan from the TG government is repayable on the 16th anniversary with the entire proceeds of the financial assistance applied towards debt reduction. The company has not defaulted on payment of any dues to the financial lenders.

L&TMRH, which was recently in the news when one of the parent company’s top official claimed losses due to the free bus travel for women, has stated that there has been a steady rise in passenger journeys at gross level as the metro rail system offers advantage to commuters in terms of safety, reliability and reduction in travel time.

The firm is planning to introduce open-loop ticketing system (OTS) in the next financial year to add further convenience to the commuters’ digital payments. In the seventh year of the commercial operations, the 57 train sets have got an ‘Intermediated Overhauling (IOH)’ without any disruptions to operations. A Periodic Overhauling (POH) of the trains is scheduled to be done in this financial year of 2024-25.