Centre has no plan to reinstate senior citizens concession in train fare

Restoring senior citizen concession in train fare would not be desirable due to Indian Railways’ financial constraints.

In a written reply to Parliament, Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the fares in most train travel classes were already low, and that the national transporter suffered recurring losses because of the low fares and the concessions given to different categories.

Railways was already bearing more than 50 per cent—on an average—of the cost of travel for all passengers, including senior citizens, thanks to the lower fare structure for passenger services, Vaishnaw informed Lok Sabha.

“Due to Covid-19, passenger earnings for the last two years were less in comparison to 2019-20. These have long-term impact on the financial health of the railways. Cost of granting concessions weighs heavily on the railways, hence extending scope of concessions to all categories of passengers, including senior citizens, is not desirable,” he stated.

In the pre-Covid period, the railways used to provide fare concessions for more than 50 categories. During the pandemic, however, the railways cancelled all concessions; subsequently it restored 15 concession categories, including four for persons with disabilities. However, senior citizen concession was not reinstated.

According to him, Rs 4,794 crore was marked as revenue foregone by the railways, due to concessions in passenger fare to senior citizens during 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20—for both reserved and unreserved categories.

Vaishnaw also informed the Lok Sabha that the number of senior citizen passengers who travelled in reserved classes during 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 were 6.18 crore, 1.90 crore and 5.55 crore, respectively.

The minister attributed the decrease in the number of senior citizen passengers during 2020-21 and 2021-22 to the pandemic.

“In 2019-20, 22.62 lakh senior citizen passengers opted to give up the passenger fare concession for the sustained development of Railways with better facilities,” he said.