Another rail fare hike soon?

Zeebiz Bureau

New Delhi: Indian Railways might soon announce another hike in rail fares, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The Railways has plan to increase AC 3-tier, chair car and sleeper class fares to generate more revenues the paper stated

The final decision will reportedly be taken by Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal following the annual general managers’ meet on February 15.

Breaking away from the populism of his predecessors, including Lalu Prasad and Mamata Banerjee, Bansal, who was made the railway minister last October, had announced about 21% hike in passenger fares across-the-board last month.

With an aim to mop up additional revenue of Rs. 6600 crore in a year railway fares were hiked after 10 years.

Fares of ordinary second class (suburban) trains will go up by 2 paise per kilometre while for non-suburban travel it will be 3 paise.

Travel by second class mail and express trains will be costlier by 4 paise per kilometre, while it will be 6 paise more in sleeper class.

Travellers by AC chair car and AC three tier will have to shell out 10 paise more per kilometre, first class by 3 paise, AC two tier by 6 paise and AC first class by 10 paise.

The fares for first class, AC two tier and AC first/executive class were already raised by 10 paise per kilometre, 15 and 30 paise respectively in the fiscal's budget.

With PTI Inputs