Railways mulling to introduce Progressive Fare Increase

Railways mulling to introduce Progressive Fare Increase

New Delhi: Soon, you may have to shell out extra if you book train tickets close to date of journey. To increase revenue, Indian Railways is mulling to introduce progressively increasing fare and refund charges where one would have to shell out the least on booking or cancelling train tickets near the existing period of 120 days.

Ticket price and cancellation charges would be increased every 10 days thereafter like flight tickets that have dynamic pricing as well based on date of journey, said sources.

This proposal was discussed on the first day of the Indian Railways Chief Commercial Managers’ (CCMs’) conference held here on Tuesday. CCMs of all 16 railway zones and senior officials of Railway Board like member (traffic) Kundan Sinha, additional member (commercial) S C Jethi, officials from Konkan Rail Corporation, Metro Rail, Kolkata, IRCTC and Container Corporation of India (CONCOR), among others were present.

Sources indicated railways may soon give a nod to the proposal that would then be introduced in rail budget next year for approval. Member (traffic) Sinha also discussed running of Suvidha trains, running trains on time, increase in revenue, extension of passenger amenities and running new trains.

Extension of mobile services: Public transporter is also trying to extend passenger amenities on mobile phones like mobile application based paperless ticket system as a part of ‘Digital India’ programme of the Centre. Apart from existing e-ticket SMS on mobiles; passengers would get destination “SMS alerts” in all trains. Besides, current reservation through e-ticketing, general or unreserved ticket booking and refund on mobile app akin to Mumbai suburban local train tickets that was launched in December last year were also discussed.

E-catering services where passengers can book preferred meal through e-catering website of IRCTC as well as through phone and SMS, would also be extended. Currently, services are available in 1,516 trains of which 56 are in west central railway (WCR). There are more than 12,600 trains that run daily in India.

Catering to be improved: Senior railway officials took cognizance of the numerous complaints and public grievance related to food served on-board in trains and catering, especially in Shatabdi Express. It was discussed that only the lowest bidder shouldn’t be awarded catering contract, instead someone with a proven track record should be considered. “Catering has to be detached from earning potential for passengers to get warm food at a reasonable price,” said an official. However, no discussions on shifting of base kitchens to Bhopal or Itarsi was held.

Shortage of staff: Several zonal railways represented by respective CCMs pointed out they were facing severe shortage of staff, as much as by 30%. Besides, railway protection force (RPF) personnel were also understaffed poising threat to railway property. It was informed at the conference that railways was planning to recruit around 16,000 RPF personnel soon to address this issue.