IRCTC's Tejas Express has made a profit of around  70 lakh till October this year while earning a revenue of nearly Rs 3.70 crore through sale of tickets, sources said,signalling a steady start for the Railways' first "privately" run train. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation's Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express is part of the Railways' bid to develop 50 railway stations of world-class standards and allowing private passenger train operators to run 150 trains on its network.

The train has run with an average occupancy of 80-85 percent since it began operations on October 5, the sources said. From October 5to October 28 (21 days, as the train runs six days a week), the expenditure incurred by IRCTC in running the train was around Rs 3 crore, they said. The Railway subsidiary, which spent an average of nearly Rs 14 lakh per day to runthe state-of-the-art train, earned around Rs 17.50 lakh daily from passengerfares. The Tejas Express on the Lucknow-Delhi route is the Railways' firstexperience of running a train by non-railway operator and its own subsidiaryIRCTC.

The IRCTC has a slew of benefits worked out for itspassengers -- combination meals, free insurance of up to Rs 25 lakh andcompensation in case of delays. The government last month constituted a specialtask force comprising a group of secretaries to expedite the initiative onprivate train operation and station redevelopment projects. However, the firstmeeting of the group is yet to take place.