Railways announces fare hike effective from Jan 1

On the eve of New Year's day, Indian Railways announced a hike in passenger fare across its network effective from January 1, 2020, first fare hike in last five years.

Ordinary non-AC, non-suburban fares hiked by 1 paise per km of journey.

The railways also announced a two paise/km hike in fares of mail/express non-AC trains and four paise/km hike in the fares of AC classes.

However, suburban fares and season ticket price remains unchanged.

The increase in fare will be on tickets bought on or after January 1, 2020, and no excess fare (difference of fare) will be charged from passengers who have booked tickets before this date, railways said in a statement.

The hike will also affect fare in premium trains like Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto, Humsafar, Mahamana, Gatiman, antyodaya, Garib Rath, Jan Shatabdi, AC -MEMU (non-suburban) and AC DEMU (non-Sururban).

However, there will be no change in charges for reservation fee, superfast surcharges.

The last fare revision was done in 2014-15, where passenger fare was hiked by 14.5 % and freight charges hiked by 6.5 %.

Despite an increase in wages, increasing onboard and off-board facilities and increasing operational cost, the fare was not hiked for the past five years, railway officials said.

In order to expand passenger amenities and facilities at various railway stations and trains, it has become imperative to increase the fare marginally without overburdening any class of passengers, said railway officials.

Revenue generated from fare hike will be used for modernisation of the national transport said the statement.

Keeping the affordability concerns of daily commuters, there shall be no fare hike for passengers over suburban sections and season ticket holders. This class constitutes 66% of total passenger segment over Indian railways.

Even for the passengers traveling in ordinary Non AC Classes, there shall be a marginal increase of 1 paise/ passenger kilometre. the hike will have no effect on the catering charges, officials said.