India

Railways rubbishes reports of fare hike from Jan 6, calls it 'fake', 'baseless'

Updated : January 06, 2021 04:49 PM IST

No proposal under consideration to increase the fares, says railways.

Railways had announced a fare hike across its network from Jan 1.

The Indian Railways has rubbished reports of fare hike from January 6 claiming that the reports are "fake" and "baseless". The railways are slowly resuming operations which were hit due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

Clarifying the stand, the press information bureau (PIB) tweeted, "Several media outlets have reported that Indian Railways is planning to raise passenger fares from January 6, 2021. This claim is fake and baseless. There is NO proposal under consideration to increase the fares."

Claim: Several media outlets have reported that Indian Railways is planning to raise passenger fares from January 6, 2021.#PIBFactCheck: This claim is #Fake and #Baseless. There is NO proposal under consideration to increase the fares. pic.twitter.com/qkOxCejapx
— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) January 6, 2021

On New Year's eve, the railways had announced a fare hike across its network, excluding suburban trains, effective from January 1, 2020, according to an order issued on December 29, 2020.

While suburban fares remain unchanged, ordinary non-AC, non-suburban fares were increased by 1 paise per km of journey. The railways had also announced a two paise/km hike in fares of mail/express non-AC trains and four paise/km hike in the fares of AC classes.

The fare hike is also applicable to premium trains such as Shatabdi, Rajdhani and Duronto, according to the order. In the Delhi-Kolkata Rajdhani, which covers a distance of 1,447 km, the hike at the rate of 4 paise per km will be around Rs 58.

According to the order, there will not be any change in the reservation fee and superfast charge and the hike in fares will not be applicable to tickets already booked.

The last such hike was announced in 2014-2015 when fares of all classes of trains were raised by 14.2 per cent and freight charges by 6.5 per cent. However, since then, the railways introduced the flexi-fare scheme which significantly raised fares on select trains and launched trains like Vande Bharat Express and Tejas Express which have relatively higher fares. Trains with dynamic pricing like Suvidha Express were also introduced.

The railways in a statement had said the revenue generated by the "marginal" increase in fare will be used for the modernisation of the network.

With inputs from PTI

Railways rubbishes reports of fare hike from Jan 6, calls it 'fake', 'baseless'

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