Rail budget drama ends; Mukul Roy announces rollback

22 Mar 2012 Evaluate

Curtaining off the high-end drama over hike in rail fares, today, the newly ordained railway minister Mukul Roy announced rollback across all carriages barring first and second class passengers in air-conditioned carriages. According to Roy, 'the proposal to increase (fares) will impact the common man. I intend to give relief by not increasing fares in any of these classes.' The fares for other classes which are more commonly used by the poor will remain at same level.

The whole fiasco began with the presentation of Rail Budget 2012-13 on March 14, 2012 by the erstwhile railway minister Dinesh Trivedi who announced hike in railway fares without consulting his party TMC’s head Mamata Banerjee. As per Trivedi, the hike in the fares was intended to pull the standard of Indian Railways by shoring up finances and run it economically and safely. The protest on the rail budget was led by Banerjee, CM of West Bengal and head of TMC, largest ally of Congress.

In another development, five federations - All-India Railwaymen’s Federation, National Federation of Indian Railwaymen, Federation of Railway Officers’s Association, All-India RPF Association and Indian Railway Promotee Officers Federation have sent a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh threatening to protest against the rollback of fare hike alternatively demanding similar amount of grant, if the fare hike is voided. The federations will be waiting for reply from Singh for three days post which they have planned a country-wide mass agitation. With the fare hike proposal in the Rail Budget, Railways have set a target of earning Rs 4,000 crore in the next fiscal.

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