M A I N   N E W S

Second class passengers to pay more
Rajdhani, Shatabdi travel spared; freight charges rationalised; 16 Jana Shatabdi Express trains introduced
T.V. Lakshminarayan
Tribune News Service

Papers of the Railway Budget 2002-2003 being unloaded at Parliament House in New Delhi on Tuesday. — PTI photo

New Delhi, February 26
The Railways will charge the common man more for train travel from April 1 and hike the freight cost of several commodities, including grains and pulses, to mobilise additional revenue of Rs 1360 crore during the next fiscal year.

Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, while presenting the Railway Budget for 2002-03, did not tinker with the fare structure for Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express trains but hiked second class fare in the name of rationalisation of fare.

The minimum fare for second class (mail/express) is proposed to be increased from Rs 15 to Rs 16 up to a distance of 15 km and the minimum fare for the second class (ordinary) is proposed to be increased from Rs 3 to Rs 4 up to a distance of 10 km. The maximum increase in fare for any distance up to 100 km will be Rs 3 per ticket.

In the rationalised structure, the fare for distances beyond 100 km is proposed to be fixed at 55 per cent of the second class (mail/express) fare.

Mr Nitish Kumar proposed that the second class (mail/express) would be the base class. Indexing the fare of second class at 100, the fare of other six classes of mail and express services would be rationalised as per the following relativity index: second class (100), sleeper class (160), AC chair car (350), AC 3-tier (450), first class (525), AC 2-tier (720) and AC first class (1400).

Similarly, for ordinary passenger services, indexing the fare of second class (ordinary) at 100, the fare of the other two classes is sleeper class (160) and first class (525).

The Railway Minister explained that for some distances the fare got reduced due to application of the revised relativity index.

The rationalisation of monthly season tickets was also proposed. This includes fixing the fare for the second class monthly season tickets equivalent to the fare for 15 single journeys by second class (ordinary) uniformly for all distances, first class season tickets at four times the second class season ticket fare and quarterly season tickets at 2.7 times the monthly season ticket fare.

To commemorate the historic and momentous date of April 16, 1853, when the first train steamed out of Boribunder for Thane, Mr Nitish Kumar announced the introduction of 16 inter-city train sevices to be called as Jana Shatabdi Express trains.

These trains would have most of the characteristics of the current Shatabdi Express trains as well as specially designed second class chair car accommodation.

The 16 pairs of services proposed to be introduced in various parts of the country are as follows:

Madgaon-Mumbai (Lokmanya Tilak Terminus); Guwahati-Dimapur; Raigarh-Raipur-Durg; Ahmedabad-Bhuj, Tatanagar-Ranchi, Bangalore-Hubli, Ernakulum-Thiruvanthapuram, Kota-Nizamuddin, Bhubaneshwar-Howrah, Dehra Dun-New Delhi, Howrah-Malda Town, Varanasi-Lucknow, Chandigarh-New Delhi, Chennai Central-Vijayawada- Gudur, Habibganj-Jabalpur, Katihar-Patna.

The Railway Minister also announced several initiatives to improve passenger amenities like computer-based unreserved ticketing system, passenger reservation system, “rail neer” drinking water to be provided in railway stations and food plazas.

The minister said safety would be the focus area for the Railways and a Rs 17000-crore Special Railway Safety Fund had been set up. The safety-related works expected to be executed from this fund included the renewal of nearly 17,000 km of track, rebuilding of over 3000 bridges, replacement of signalling gears at almost 950 stations, replacement of rolling stock and investment in safety enhancement aids.

On the increase in freight rates, Mr Nitish Kumar did not propose an across-the-board increase.

Saying that over the years certain anomalies had crept in into the freight structure due to ad hoc changes in the freight rates, the minister proposed rationalisation of the way goods were categorised.

The freight structure for the base class-100 has been rationalised. Freight rates of the base class-100 for change but as distance increases it will vary between 0.95 per cent to 3.76 per cent. For some distances like 600 km to 1400 km the freight rates actually comes down marginally.

In the revised structure, there will be 32 percentage classes in relation to the base class-100. Class-90 would be the lowest class and class-300 would be the highest class.

Under the rationalisation of freight rates, certain commodities like grains and pulses, coal, urea, groundnut oil and iron ore will cost more to be transported for a distance of 700 km while commodities like cement, pig iron, high speed diesel, and kerosene will also cost more.

The modifications in the freight rates are expected to yield an additional revenue of Rs 450 crore during the year and the increase in passenger fare will yield Rs 910 crore.

On the new projects being planned by the Railways, Mr Nitish Kumar said the focus would be on the augmentation of capacity on the saturated golden quadrilateral and its diagonals, which would require doubling of the single line patches, third and fourth line in some stretches and electrification of un-electrified areas.

Addressing the complaint of MPs that allocation of railway projects to different states was not equitable, the minister announced a new clear and transparent formula to ensure that the available resources are distributed in a manner which can be considered fair and just. The formula takes into account three major criteria, including the area of the state, the population and the throwforward of projects in states.

Completion of the Udhampur-Katra and Qazigund-Baramula sections of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramula project within three years was announced.

Two projects are being taken up on strategic considerations. These include a new line between Kolayat and Phalodi in Rajasthan and gauge conversion from Luni to Munabao, also in the same state. It has been decided that the Ministry of Defence would fund the projects.

The Railways proposes to complete 214 km of new line during 2002-03 and achieve doubling in 250 km.

Justifying the proposed hike in passenger fare and rationalisation of freight charges, Mr Nitish Kumar said, “Despite increase in the working expenses of the Railways, there was no increase in the passenger fare during the past two years.”

The Railways is expecting to carry 510 million tonnes of revenue earnings, originating traffic during 2002-2003 which is 21 million tonnes more than the traffic of 489 million tonnes in the current year.

On the basis of these assumptions and at the current level of fare and freight rates, the gross traffic receipts are estimated at Rs 40,178 crore. This is Rs 2458 crore higher than the revised estimates of the current financial year.

Based on the projections, the Budget leaves a shortfall of Rs 340 crore in the receipts over the expenditure in 2002-03 due to which the funds required for the Plan fall short by Rs 1360 crore. This is proposed to be covered through additional mobilisation of resources.

New Delhi, February 26
The following are the existing and proposed fares for second class (mail/express services).