TLI Staff
New Delhi: Amid growing complaints against Indian Railways for charging higher fares from passengers during pandemic, the national transporter led by Minister Piyush Goyal has said that fares for special trains were being fixed a little higher since 2015 and it was an established practice.
“This year there has been pent-up demand on many sectors on which the festival trains were running. These festival trains have been continued to clear the rush. The fare for such trains has been kept little higher since 2015. Nothing new is being done this year. This is an established practice,” the Railways said in a statement today.
The public transporter said on Thursday that it has operationalised almost 60% of the Mail/Express trains as compared to the pre-lockdown times. 77% of these special trains have fares of regular trains. Around 250 trains daily are running as trains with special fares, it noted.
It may be noted that Railways has been running many trains prefixing it with Special and has been charging higher fares.
Tasked with the responsibility to provide affordable travel for citizens, Indian railways has been subsidising train fares. While it continues to do so, the extent of subsidy has come down as a result of increase in fares for the so-called special trains.
The Railways has been using its earnings from freight business to subsidise passenger fares. Before pandemic hit the country and business ran as usual, officials had said that Railways recovers only 53% of the cost of a ticket from a passenger. The balance is given as subsidy to passengers.
Departing from the earlier practice of revising train fares through Parliamentary approval, the government now revises tariff through executive orders. Given its brute majority in Lok Sabha and ability to swing numbers in its favour in the Rajya Sabha, the government cares little about opposition to its policies.
A massive row had erupted last year over train fares with main opposition Congress Party attacking the government for “collecting train fares from migrant workers.” The Railways had then dismissed the charge and said that Shramik Special trains were requisitioned by State governments.
Replying to a question on the issue in Rajya Sabha, Minister Piyush Goyal later said that Railways had collected fare for Shramik Special trains from State Governments or their authorized representatives.
“Railways did not collect any fare directly from the passengers,” he had said.
The Railways had collected a total of Rs 433 crore from State Governments and from the representatives of State Governments for running of Shramik Special trains for period from May 1 to August 31, 2020.
Acting both as a social as well as commercial organisation, Railways is required to bear part of the passenger movement cost to make mobility affordable.