Govt ups railway fares by 14.20%, freight charges increased by 6.5%

23 Jun 2014 Evaluate

In a bitter medicine, which was necessitated to set right the faltering finances of the railways that were aggravated by UPA’s mismanagement of the economy, Modi led government approved a steep hike in the train fares and freight rates. With this, fares of all classes would be hiked by 14.20%, while the freight rates would go up by 6.50%, effective from June 25. Of the total, as much as 4.20% of the fare hike is on account of a variable Fuel Adjustment Component (FAC) approved in last year’s rail budget, remaining 10% is a flat hike across all classes. Similarly, freight rates too have 5% flat hike over and above a 1.4% of the FAC.

Further, this decision would help Indian Railways to mop up an additional Rs 8,000 crore in the financial year. In present scenario, Railways’ subsidy to passenger operations had touched Rs 26,000 crore and its ordinary working expenses have been mounting on account of fuel bill and salary.

However, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda had sought Modii’s approval to roll out the unpopular move barely a couple of weeks before the government’s first rail budget. Gowda had also made a case for the hike to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earlier this week.

This move besides being unpopular also was tricky one for Sadananda Gowda as the previous government prevented the proposal of this very hike to be rolled out on May 16, the day of the election results that brought in the regime change. The expected mop-up of around Rs 10,000 crore had already been factored in the interim budget passed in Parliament before elections. This was perhaps the reason behind the automatic hike that was taken by the Railways on May 16, but the same had be quickly withdrawn on account of former Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge’s objection.

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