Now passengers will have to pay more while travelling in trains as the Railways today announced a across the board hike in fares with effect from 21st of this month. Making the announcement in New Delhi, Rail Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said the Second Class ordinary suburban fares has been raised by 2 paise per kilometer and Second Class ordinary non suburban services by 3 paise per Kilometer.
Second class Mail or Express train fares have been increased by 4 paise per kilometer and Sleeper class by 6 paise per Km. Mr. Bansal said the hike in AC Chair Car and AC three Tier, will go up by 10 paise per kilometer.
Three paise per kilometer additional increase has been made in First Class, six paise in AC-2 Tier and 10 paise additional hike in AC First Class apart from the existing hike of 10 paise, 15 paise and 30 paise per kilometer in these classes.
Mr. Bansal said that additional 6,600 crore revenue will be generated per year out of which 1000 crore will be fetched by ACs Classes. He said the fare hike announced after a decade had become imperative to bring down losses. He also said, there will be no fresh passenger fare hike in the forthcoming rail budget.
The Rail Minister Mr Bansal also said discussions on the proposal for setting up a Rail Tariff Authority is in progress and once finalized will be sent to the Cabinet for approval.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi said the rail fare hike was inevitable. Talking to All India Radio,he said the consideration for a hike in railway fares was going on for a long time and it is in the interest of the country.
The BJP opposed the fare hike demanding an immediate roll back. Talking to AIR party spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, the fare hike was undemocratic and add to the burden of the common man.
Left parties also criticised the government's decision to hike rail fares, calling it unjustified and demanded a rollback in fares for non-AC travel. CPI National Secretary D Raja said the hike would have a cascading effect on the people who were already burdened with price rise.
