How politics threw Namma Metro off track in Bengaluru’s fare hike chaos

Bengaluru: The controversy over Namma Metro’s annual automatic fare hike highlights how political interference continues to dictate ticket price revisions — exactly what the independent Fare Fixation Committee (FFC) was meant to prevent. 

Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) deferred its 5% annual fare hike — slated to take effect from February 9 — after receiving an email a day earlier from the office of its chairman Srinivas Katikithala, who is also the Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). 

But just a week earlier, the BMRCL chairman had told officials that the annual revision was unavoidable as it had been mooted by the FFC, whose recommendations are binding, sources in the know said. 

The proposal triggered intense public backlash and political bickering over who controls the metro fares: Karnataka or Centre? 

The hike was timed exactly a year after the fares had been increased by an average of 51.55% before discounts and 46.39% after discounts, making the Bengaluru metro one of the most expensive in the country.

After BMRCL announced the hike on February 5, the Opposition BJP targeted the Congress government. However, the state insisted it had no role to play in the exercise. It also specified that the FFC was constituted by the Centre and that its recommendations are binding under the Metro Railways (Operation and Maintenance) Act, a central law.

Confusion deepened three days later when BJP leaders claimed that the hike had been put on hold on the Centre’s directions. To further muddy the waters, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar declared that it was the state that had decided to withhold the hike. The Centre has no power to interfere in this matter, he added.

He also said he had asked BMRCL to reassess the fares based on operating and maintenance costs, CPI changes, staff expenses, energy costs and other factors.

Technically speaking, BMRCL deferred the hike following a directive from its chairman, the sources added.

This legal nuance highlights how BMRCL is caught between political pressures from both sides.

BJP’s Bangalore South MP L S Tejasvi Surya said the FFC was constituted by the Centre at the state’s request. The state had told the committee it could no longer continue the Shadow Cash Support (SCS) that earlier governments were providing, he told DH.

Sources noted that the first request to constitute the FFC was made in 2020, when the BJP was in power in Karnataka.

Independent mobility expert Sathya Arikutharam blamed the BMRCL for the mess.

“Instead of relying on straightforward audited cost data, it used a strange interpretation of the Delhi FFC formula to falsely make a case for a 105% fare hike. There never was a case for a 5% annual hike given the multiple self-evident errors in BMRCL’s FFC report,” he said.

He stressed that the state cannot walk away from its SCS commitments, which are enshrined in the tripartite MoU.

Sources countered that there were no anomalies in the FFC calculations and pointed out that the state bears a big chunk of the metro funding — equity, land acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R), SCS for cash loss reimbursement and interest-free sub-debt towards loan repayments and so on. “It has been paying but how long will it continue to pay,” they asked.

They added that the fare reassessment ordered by the DCM would be limited to the 5% fare hike.

“Our operating costs rose by 10.2%, but the hike was capped at 5%. We will get our calculations audited. If the required hike is lower, we will implement that,” the sources said.

On reconstituting the FFC, the sources said the process would take time. “It took four years — from 2020 to 2024 — to constitute the first FFC. So you can guess how long this could take,” they added.