M A I N   N E W S

Railway fares up by 14.2%
Freight charges hiked by 6.5%
Revision effective from June 25
Girja Shankar Kaura
Tribune News Service

The BJP befooled the people in the General Election by promising ache din... they have fired the first salvo from toop (tank) on the common man's chest. — Lalu Prasad, former rail minister The hike will stoke the flames of inflation and result in across-the-board hike in the prices of both goods and services, and hit the common man hard. — Deepender Singh Hooda, mp Without adequate resources, Indian Railways will not be able to afford its modernisation, capacity addition and safety plans. — Chandrajit Banerjee, director general, cii

New Delhi, June 20
Biting the bullet in an effort to revive the economy, the Narendra Modi government today approved a steep hike in railway passenger fare and freight rates, which would also go a long way in reviving the financial health of the public sector behemoth.

Effective from June 25 (post midnight of 24th), fares will be raised by 14.2 per cent while freight will be up by 6.5 per cent.

The Congress-led UPA government had also approved the revision of railway fares but could not implement it as it had lost the public mandate to remain in power.

The government said the rail passenger fare and freight rate revision was done as part of the interim budget presented by the previous government. But the implementation of revised rates was withdrawn by previous regime because of the elections.

"Meeting the annual expenditure would not be possible unless the revised rates as finalised by previous government are implemented," a press statement issued by the government said.

The report further said that in the case of tickets already issued at pre-revised rates, the difference in fares and other charges on or after June 25 will be recovered either by the TTEs on the trains or by the booking/reservation offices before the commencement of journey by passengers.

As much as 10 per cent of the hike in the fare is a flat revision while the remaining 4.2 per cent is on account of a fuel adjustment component as approved in the Budget.

Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda had yesterday clearly indicated that there would a revision in rail fares soon and had sought the approval of PM Narendra Modi to implement the hike because it was essentially a political decision for the new government.

However, the hike came just a day later indicating the critical need of the move to bring in finance for the railways seeking urgent modernisation. The UPA government had left passenger fares unchanged in the Interim Railway Budget in February ahead of the General Election, presenting a vote-on-account leaving the difficult job of managing the national transporter’s weak finances to the next government.