Delhi Metro on recovery path after two years

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Metro, which reported huge financial loss over the last two financial years owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, is now back on track to recover from the losses, as the passenger traffic volume is almost back to the pre-Covid levels.
A Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) official told The Sunday Guardian that the Metro rail operations in Delhi are back on a healthy track and that the Metro is able to get back almost 90% of the pre-Covid level of passengers boarding the trains again.
“During the pandemic, the Metro was shut for a long period and even the re-opening was done in a graded manner with reduced volume of traffic. Even after opening the Metro for the public, we were only able to cater to 40% of the total traffic due to the social distancing restrictions, this caused a huge drop in revenue from the fares that we were collecting pre-pandemic, but the operating costs remained the same. This caused a huge financial loss for the Metro. But now, with the complete opening of the Metro across all networks in the national capital, we are back to 90% in terms of passenger volumes and on a health track to recover from the losses,” an official spokesperson of DMRC told The Sunday Guardian.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs also informed the Rajya Sabha earlier this month that all the operational Metro rail networks in the country are currently running in losses.
The DMRC’s annual report of 2021-2022 also reported a net loss of Rs 3808.63 crore. The DMRC during the said period generated a total revenue of Rs 4677.01 crore, inclusive of income from passenger traffic operations, real estate, consultancy and external projects. The expenditure incurred during the same period by DMRC was Rs 5108.05 crore which resulted in a loss of Rs 431.04 crore, the report stated.
However, after considering depreciation and amortisation expenses, net expenditure on airport express line, loss before tax, deferred taxes and other liabilities, the DMRC posted a net loss of Rs 3808.63 crore.
The losses for the DMRC was much higher in the financial year of 2020-2021 due to a longer shut down during 2020 when the country witnessed a nationwide lockdown. The Delhi Metro was shut for more than 170 consecutive days during this period, resulting in nil passenger traffic volume that caused a huge financial loss to the urban rapid mass transit system.
According to the DMRC’s annual report of 2020-2021, it faced an operating loss of Rs 1761.23 crore during the said period, while its revenue dipped by 77% compared to 2019-20. The DMRC generated just about Rs 876 crore revenue from traffic operations against Rs 3800 crore it generated in 2019-20.
During 2020-2021, the DMRC posted a net loss of Rs 2341.52 crore. The Metro also posted reduced earnings through its ancillary businesses which includes its real estate business in the form of leasing out spaces to outlets, parking, among others, consultancy, etc.
Compare this with the 2019-2020 period when the DMRC posted an operational profit of Rs 758 crore. The Delhi Metro generated a revenue of Rs 7014.69 crore inclusive of income from traffic operations, real estate, consultancy and external projects in the same period and its total expenditure during this period was Rs 4911.97 crore. After considering depreciation, amortisation expenses, finance cost and Tax Expense, it posted a profit of Rs 2102.72 crore in 2019-2020.
However, asked how the DMRC was meeting its expenses during the last two years, the official spokesperson of the DMRC said that they were meeting its regular expenses during the last two years from the profits it generated in the earlier years.“We did meet our regular expenses like salary and other ancillary costs from our previous earnings and paid regular salaries to all our employees even during the lockdown. We did not borrow any money from any agency to meet our regular expenses,” the spokesperson said.
The Delhi Metro is also currently working on expanding its network further in the national capital and as per approved plans, works are underway to add 65 km of Metro rail network in Delhi’s already existing wide network. Some of the lines in which work is underway includes the connection in the Janakpuri-Majlis Park corridor, Janakpuri-RK Ashram corridor, among others.