Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has dismissed media reports which suggested steep decline in Delhi Metro ridership is due to recent increase in fares. <br/><br/>In a statement, the Ministry clarified that the media reports have sought to falsely project that Delhi Government wanted to postpone the hike but it was Central government which was keen on the tariff hike. <br/><br/>The Ministry said, the fare is determined by fair fixation committee and not by the Centre or Delhi government. It said, there is no relationship between the fare and ridership numbers. In 2016, there was a ridership dip by 1.3 lakh from September to October even though there was no change in fare structure. <br/><br/>The Ministry pointed out that there are month to month variations throughout the year and fluctuation in ridership can not be solely attributed to increase in metro fare. On previous occasions also there was temporary dip in ridership which recovered shortly.<br/><br/>According to the statement, ridership in the current month has shown a rising trend. Metro is a capital intensive project and DMRC has a loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency of 28,268 crore rupees of which only 1,507 crore rupees have been paid. It has to pay 890 crore rupees towards principal and interest liability for the current year.