Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has directed senior officials of the Ministry of Railways to develop a comprehensive action plan to curb the theft of linen provided in AC coaches. Losses caused by the disappearance of bedsheets, blankets, pillow covers, towels, and other onboard amenities provided to passengers during train trips are going up.
The minister’s directive is to enhance passenger service and reduce the amount of money lost by Indian Railways due to the high-volume theft of linen from trains in India, while the number of trains is going to be much higher than expected.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🚨Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw directed officials to develop an action plan to curb the massive theft of AC coach linen. <a href="https://t.co/bHpf8bgeFX">pic.twitter.com/bHpf8bgeFX</a></p>— Indian Infra Report (@Indianinfoguide) <a href="https://x.com/Indianinfoguide/status/2077262369890107889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As railway officials say, thousands of linen items go missing from AC coaches each year, and that’s putting a huge load on the national transporter. These losses not only cause higher replacement costs but also affect the availability of clean and hygienic linen for future passengers.
Indian Railways offers fresh laundered linen to passengers in AC First Class, AC Two-Tier and AC Three-Tier coaches on eligible services. The kits of linen are usually bedsheets, blankets, pillow covers, hand towels, and pillows that are washed and sanitized after every trip before being redistributed.
However, officials have found that most of them are not returned after trips and that there are regular procurement and replacement costs. Theft of railway property is a perennial problem in several railway zones.
As part of the solution, the Railway Minister has asked officials to look at several preventive measures. They could include better inventory management, enhanced monitoring at coach cleaning depots, stricter accountability mechanisms, better awareness campaigns for passengers, and technology to track linen movement.
Railways will also assess the use of advanced identification technologies such as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, QR-code-based inventory systems, or digital tracking systems to track linen usage throughout the supply chain. Such technologies have already been used by many global transportation networks to improve asset management and reduce losses.
Passenger awareness will be key as well, besides technology measures. Railway authorities have repeatedly appealed to passengers not to strip railway property from coaches, and to keep it away from passenger transport coaches because it is something shared by the people of the railway and it is for common public use, and theft of it will hurt millions of travelers.
The cost of linen theft goes beyond replacement costs. The lack of linen increases procurement costs, puts pressure on laundry services, and can lead to shortages that inconvenience passengers. Clean linen is part of Indian Railways’ passenger comfort agenda.
In recent years, the ministry has also taken several modernization steps to improve the experience of passengers - coaches, station redevelopment projects, cleaning up of the onboard environment, digital ticketing systems, catering services, and safety improvements.
Addressing theft of onboard amenities is in line with the entire objective of a team working efficiently and improving service quality. The management of avoidable losses can be used better for infrastructure development and improvements for the passengers.
But such theft of public property is a problem in many transportation systems worldwide, experts say. Solutions for tackling it are technology-enabled, surveillance-enabled, stronger enforcement-based, and public collaboration, not a single solution.
Indian Railways is one of the world’s largest railway networks with millions of passenger trips daily on thousands of trains. The logistics, continuous monitoring, and efficient resource management are required to manage assets on such a large scale.
The action plan should also provide practical measures that could be implemented in all railway zones and still be convenient for passengers. There might be a review of linen collection, storage, transportation, and distribution to determine in which areas the loss would be the least.
As Indian Railways is in the process of modernization, protecting public assets remains important for the delivery of reliable and high-quality passenger service delivery. The Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's initiative is in line with the government’s plan to make the railway more efficient, reduce waste and provide clean, comfortable and well-maintained facilities to passengers as they travel.
