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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | What cost his job: bold budget, new tariff ideas

What cost his job: bold budget, new tariff ideas

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published Published on Mar 15, 2012   modified Modified on Mar 15, 2012
-Express News Service

On Wednesday, Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi lost his job for doing what two of his immediate predecessors — one of them his own party boss — could not. After 10 years, fares of passenger trains were finally increased in the rail budget that Trivedi presented, with the aim of pumping in much-needed funds into the financially ill national transport utility.

Rolled out in two forms, the “fare rationalisation” models are expected to leave the Railways richer by between Rs 4,000 crore and 7,000 crore annually, by making train fares 10-20 per cent higher across classes depending on the distance travelled.

Trivedi also spelled out a plan to balance fluctuating fuel costs with train fares and laid out a roadmap for a major revamp in the Indian Railways Board, aimed at making the Railways more modern and safe.

An independent Rail Tariff Authority, subject to approval by Parliament, will from now on fix fares, and thereby take away the railway minister’s exclusive powers on fare revisions.

“I have successfully brought the Railways out of the intensive care unit,” Trivedi said minutes after delivering the budget.

His plan outlay of Rs 60,100 crore is the highest ever, about Rs 3,000 crore more than last year’s outlay earmarked by Mamata Banerjee. “I had to do it to save the Railways,” Trivedi said.

As per his proposals, fares will rise by 2 paise per kilometre for suburban and ordinary second class and 3 paise per km for mail/express second class — both unreserved classes, said to be transporters of the poor.

In the reserved classes, non-AC sleeper will see an increase of 5 paise per kilometre, while AC-3, 2 and 1 will see increases of 10 paise, 15 paise and 30 paise per kilometre, respectively.

Typically, a journey on the Mumbai Rajdhani from Delhi in AC-3 will cost Rs 1,440, up from Rs 1,302 — about a 10 per cent increase. For AC-1 and 2, the increases will be between 10 and 15 per cent. For the non-AC sleeper classes, the jump is a little over 20 per cent.

For the Railways, the two classes bleeding its coffers over the years — sleeper and unreserved berths — will now see some income.

In another rationalisation move, Trivedi proposed a novel “round off” mechanism, wherein fares would be rounded off to the next possible five rupees. For instance, a fare of 146 would become 150. But there’s a concession for local trains, where downward rounding off has also been allowed, in which case, a fare of Rs 11 would become Rs 10.

Trivedi has done major restructuring of the Railway Board as well by proposing two new members. A new Member (Public-Private Partnerships and Marketing) will oversee investment opportunities in the Railways for private players and look for more ways to earn money from non-conventional sources. Member (Safety), on the other hand, will look after critical safety upgrade as envisaged in the Anil Kakodkar panel on railway safety recently.

Talking about an eventuality of the Trinamool Congress forcing a rollback of the hikes by way of a cut motion in his budget, Trivedi said it would be detrimental for the Railways. “A rollback in the hikes would be a rollback in safety,” he said.

The Indian Express, 15 March, 2012, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/what-cost-his-job-bold-budget-new-tariff-ideas/923866/


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