1. The revenues of railways accrue mostly from the transport of passengers and goods traffic and are realized through the booking points located at stations, Goods Sheds, Private Freight Terminals, Container Depots, Out Agencies, Non Rail heads PRS/UTS Terminals, Private Sidings, and Non- Government (NGR) Lines, SPV Lines etc. where the transactions originate and are brought to account. In addition to revenue from transport of passenger and Goods traffic, Railway revenue also accrues from other sundry sources like parking contracts, publicity rights, award of right of way etc.
2. Accounts check of
traffic earnings - The essential duty of the Accounts
Office in the matter of check of traffic earnings is to see:
1. That the party to whom the
service is rendered pays the amount due as per applicable tariff rates
2. that the railway servants
receiving payment, correctly accounts for the and
3. that, if more than one
railway renders the service; the amount is apportioned between them as per approved methods of apportionment, unless
otherwise provided for any specific traffic.
It is the duty of the Traffic
Accounts Office to issue Carriage bills for services rendered to Defence, Post
&Telegraph, and other department, etc. and to realize the Railways’ dues
from them either in cash or by book transfer as per extant arrangements, and to
watch the outstanding on this account.
3. It is also the duty of the Accounts Office to see that the
rates and fares prescribed by the Railway Administration from time to time for
the various classes of traffic are within the maxima and minima fixed by the
President.
4. Apportionment of
earnings between railways - The earnings from the
traffic carried over two or more railways are to be shared among them even
though only one railway actually receives the money. The apportionment is made
on the methodology indicated in the Chapters dealing with each kind of traffic.
Apportionment of Earnings, for traffic carried over more than one Railway, is
be carried out through the Centralized Apportionment system. The detailed
Apportionment Matrix of outward and inward shares pertaining to each Railway is
thus determined for adjustment of apportioned shares by Railways.
5. Settlement of
through traffic transaction- In
case of through traffic, even though the traffic is carried by more than one
railway a single voucher for the traffic is issued by the station from which
the traffic originates. After the internal check of such vouchers, etc. is
completed in the Accounts Office, the earnings are apportioned between the
railways, on the basis of apportionment advised by the Apportioning Agency
under Centralized Apportionment System to all the Railways involved in through
traffic transactions. The settlement of through traffic transactions between
the railways takes place monthly on the basis of net results of such
apportionment advised by the Apportioning Agency under Centralized Apportionment
System.
6. Case of loss of
revenue, or extra expenditure to be reported to the executive – In case where it is noticed in the course of internal check
that owing to any reason the railway is losing revenue or is being put to extra
expenditure, it is the duty of the authority exercising the check to bring the
matter to the notice of the Executive or Worked Lines Contract Agreement
Signing Authority. The work, so far as the traffic earnings are concerned,
should be performed by the Traffic Accounts Office.
7. Period for
completion of traffic accounts- The period
for the completion of accounts and for the settlement, among railways, of
‘through’ traffic transactions, is the complete calendar-month. To enable the
checking work to be distributed evenly throughout the month, certain station
returns are required to be submitted by stations at stated intervals during the
month. It is imperative that the work of the check of station returns remains up
to date. Deficiencies noticed during check of returns are communicated to stations
through Error Sheets. Failure in issuing timely Error sheets (A.2802) against
stations or timely claims against other Railways and Government Department
results in the claim becoming Time Barred and statistical compilations being
delayed, which needs to be strictly avoided.
8. Travelling
Inspectors of Station Accounts- The
check exercised by the Accounts Office is largely limited to an examination and
comparison of the vouchers, accounts and returns sent by stations. To render it
more complete and to verify that the accounts and returns submitted by the
stations to the Accounts Office represent the actual state of affairs at the
stations, a complement of staff designated as Travelling Inspectors of Station
Accounts is attached to the Accounts Office under the charge of an Accounts
Officer. The Travelling Inspector of station Accounts will inspect the initial
records maintained at the stations in accordance with the instructions
contained in Chapter XXXIII and Chapter XVII except that the scope of their
inspection will be mainly confined to the earnings of the Railway. Regarding
electronic data maintained in various IT Applications, TIA will inspect/verify
various reports/MIS generated from such data. The Records at the field are also
counter checked/verified vis- a-vis data available in Various Computerized
systems.
The TIA shall also check the
various aspects of potential earnings/loss and suggest the same to the TA office
for further advice /action.
9. Some checks in respect of
certain station returns, apportionment of earnings between the Railways, as
also compilation of certain statistical returns has been computerized. The
computerized processes being followed and details of checks exercised in the Traffic
Accounts Office have been incorporated at appropriate places in this Volume.
