With the railways starting to restore all train operations to pre-Covid-19 level by removing the "special" train tag, passenger fare is expected to come down from 14 to 18 per cent across the board.
The Indian Railways last week issued an order to discontinue the 'special' tag for mail and express trains and revert to pre-Covid-19 ticket prices with immediate effect.
Removing special train tags would result in lowering passenger fares up to 18%, said an official in the railways.
On special trains, the railways collect up to 18% more fares than normal fares in some categories.
To check the spread of Covid-19, the railway announced operating trains in a special category tag with higher fare when it re-started train operations. Around 1700 trains, that were tagged 'special'. These trains fares will be reduced in a few days, said the official.
The railways started the process to remove the special tag and normalise the services for which the Railways Passenger Reservation System ( PRS) will be shut down for 6:00 hours from intervening night of November 14 and 15 to the night of November 20 and 21 starting at 23:30 hrs and ending at 0530 hrs, the official said.
"This is to enable up-gradation of system data and updating of new train numbers etc. Since a huge amount of past (old train numbers) and current passenger booking data are to be updated in all Mail/ Express trains, this is being planned in a series of carefully calibrated steps and implemented during night hours in order to minimize the impact on ticketing services," the railways said.
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(Published 16 November 2021, 15:59 IST)
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