The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has disclosed that Abuja-Kaduna train service generated over N960 million in 2018 through ticketing, stating that the service generated about N80 million monthly .
Speaking to the media in Abuja, the Managing Director of NRC, Fidet Okhiria said 2018 recorded increase compared to 2017 when the service generated only N16 million per month.
Okhiria also lamented that despite the increase in revenue, the corporation was yet to break even as it was spending over N100 million monthly as running cost for the service.
“When we started, we were earning about N16 million and spending about N56 million, but right now, we can comfortably say we earn over N80 million although, we still spend over N100 million, which is closer to breaking even.
“By the time we have more coaches and run more trains, I think the expenses will reduce and more patronage will come in.
“The issue we have now is that we only run passenger trains; we don’t have freight to move from Kaduna to Abuja,’’ he said.
Okhiria said maintenance of service is expensive, noting that train stations were run on generators, lamenting the high cost of purchasing diesel for generators at the train stations.
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“If we are able to link up with some people to move freight, we will be able to break even because presently, by the time we inject power from the public power supply, I think our expenses will also come down.
“Right now, all our stations are being powered by generators for 24 hours, we buy about 99,000 litres every month to power those generators; so, it eats deep into our expenses.
“But by the time we are able to connect to the public power supply which we hope by this month will be done, the cost of buying diesel will drastically reduce and then, we can break even.’’
He said that in 2018, the number of train trips also increased from four to eight, adding that 10 more coaches would be deployed on the route.
The MD concluded that the goal was to run an hourly train service on the route as Nigerians become more confident in the service.
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