Train fares hiked across the board after 10 years
By PTI - NEW DELHI
09th January 2013 03:13 PM
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The proposals will rake in an additional Rs 1200 crore between January 21 and March 31 this year, the minister said. |PTI File photo
In a rare decision just a month ahead of the Budget, Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal Wednesday effected an across-the-board hike in fares of all classes from midnight of January 21 to net an additional Rs 6,600 crore a year, the first such increase in a decade.
The proposals will rake in an additional Rs 1200 crore between January 21 and March 31 this year, the minister said announcing the decision and did not rule out a hike in the freight tariff.
Fares of Ordinary Second Class (suburban) trains will go up by 2 paise per km while for non-suburban travel it will be 3 paise.
Travel by Second Class Mail and Express trains will be costlier by 4 paise per km, while it will be 6 paise in Sleeper Class.
Travellers by AC Chair Car and AC Three Tier will have to shell out 10 paise more per km, First Class by 3 paise, AC Two Tier by 6 paise and AC First Class by 10 paise.
The fares for First Class, AC Two Tier and AC First/ Executive Class were already raised by 10 paise per km, 15 and 30 paise respectively in the current year's budget.
Breaking away from the populism of his predecessors, including Lalu Prasad and Mamata Banerjee, Bansal, who was made the Railway Minister in October last, told a press conference that the decision to hike the fares was "imperative" as lack of revision in the last 10 years has had a "telling effect" on the railway finances.
Dinesh Trivedi, who succeeded his party chief Banerjee, made a bold decision to hike fares in the Budget in February, 2012 to mop up an additional Rs 4000 crore but paid the price when he was made to resign by his party Trinamool Congress which was opposed to it. .
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Comments(6)
Railways certainly need this hike. Unfortunately, the problem of the Railway ministry having been run by the ministers from west Bengal is severely felt now. Hitherto,. there were no increases, now all of a sudden around 20% hike in the fares from end of this month. This is the height of stupidity. why burden people suddenly. If the Railways had hiked the fare by 2% every year, not only they would have got more cumulative revenue, at the same time the burden would have been split in easy installments, every year. Anyway, people are ready to shoulder the burden, as there is no option.
Posted by chandru mani iyer at 01/09/2013 15:58 Reply to this Report abuse
I think we can dispense with the presentation of annual budget since the government is in the habit of hiking the fares etc.Except the anxiety over taxation rates no body is interested in other sermons preached in the budget proposals. The way in which finance bill are passed in the both Houses of Parliament I doubt very much whether any member of the House excepting the finance minister and the leader of opposition would have ever read the complete text.
Posted by Sundaresan Krishna Murthi at 01/09/2013 17:46 Reply to this Report abuse
kudos to IR .Rail minister Sri Bansal dis the exact pending work of a decade. passengers can now get /demand safety & better service from IR
Posted by aishik ghosh at 01/09/2013 18:02 Reply to this Report abuse
The hike after 10 years is steep and could have been gradully increased in the last 10 years . Let us not forget the glorification of Lalu Yadav as a very successfyl Railway Minsiter during UPA I by the management gurus who spent lot of their time and money to decipher his style of administration . He was the subject of serious discussion and glorified by the likes of IIMs. Actually he left the administration to the babus as he was busy filling up the railways with his political cronies and looking after cattle gracing on the railway property. At that time itself there were voices that raised concerns about safety , replacement of ageing rolling stock ,etc., but all this was conveniently ignored by the irresponsible government backed by their media puppets and the management gurus.
Posted by raj at 01/09/2013 18:18 Reply to this Report abuse
As suggested by all the readers - it is the double speaking attitude of Miss.Mamta that rail fares have never been increased all these years. We could have done away with this had these fares been increased last year - by a small margin. It would have made a lot of difference to the revenue to them. People always want better facilities - one should pay for such facilities -
Posted by tuboli at 01/09/2013 18:44 Reply to this Report abuse