Eye on polls: Rail fare hike unlikely

Jul 27, 2013 - MANISH ANAND |

Age Correspondent

With elections in sight, the Railways on Friday dropped hint that the proposed fare hike in October, when fuel adjustment cost (FAC) is expected to come in effect, could be avoided, as there are other alternatives to ramp up the revenue of the national carrier. In a bid to boost revenue, Railways is working on options to earn from trains with added capacity and carrying large freight.

The Railways had hiked the passenger fare after more than a decade when Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal was at the helms of affairs and he had argued that the cross-subsidisation from freight earnings to passenger revenue needs to be cut down.
However, Rail Board member (traffic) Devi Prasad Pandey on Friday maintained that cross-subsidisation in railways is everywhere in the world and added that there are various other options to raise revenue to make the national carrier financially and technically viable. Cross-subsidisation has come down from 36 per cent to 32 per cent after passenger fare hike, added Mr Pandey. He said that hiking the fare is just one method among many others for the railways. “We are looking at train-wise profitability as part of the direction model, with surplus coaches, which could be added into the existing trains. The coach production is sufficient for capacity upgradation, while running duplicate trains of those in high demands is another option,” said Mr Pandey.
The Railways is also aiming to further boost its share in the freight movement by running long haulage trains. “We are already running now 25 to 30 trains, which are double in size as two trains are joined. This allows to move larger freight apart from freeing tracks for the movement of other trains,” said Mr Pandey. The Railways aims to run about 50 to 60 such trains on a daily basis soon, as there is enough surplus of wagons, he added. Claiming that the Railways is doing capacity expansion of trains in a big way, Mr Pandey stated that the conditions of tracks are now far improved to carry the load, with the availability of better maintenance now.

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