Mukul Roy announces rollback in rail fare hike

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New Delhi: Railway Minister Mukul Roy on Thursday withdrew the increase in passenger fares in the sleeper, suburban, ordinary second class, AC Chair Car and AC 3-tier classes announced by his predecessor Dinesh Trivedi, who had presented the budget on March 14. Roy's announcement was expected after his party, the Trinamool Congress, forced Trivedi to quit from Union Cabinet for increasing passenger fares across all the classes.

""The proposal to increase fare by 2 paise per km, 3 paise per km and 5 paise per km in second class suburban and non-suburban and Sleeper class is a huge drain on the pocket of the masses. Similarly, increase in the fare of AC Chair Car and AC 3-tier, which is now patronised by the middle class, is also quite severe. I intend to give relief to the already over burdened common man by not effecting any increase in these classes," he announced in the Lok Sabha while replying to the Railway Budget.

The rollback is in keeping with Trinamool Congress supreme and Mamata Banerjee's stand that the hike announced by Trivedi was going to impact the common man and so was unjustified.

Roy did not touch the fares of AC 2-tier, First Class and AC I. The Railway Minister also put on hold the proposal for expansion of the Railway Board. He said that the Railways intend to launch an aggressive drive to mop up resources and upgrade safety measures.

"It is important to run railways economically and safely. There will be a recruitment of 1 lakh people in 2012-13. Unmanned level crossing will be removed and we are vigorously working towards that goal. All vacancies in safety areas will be filled up very soon," he said.

Trivedi had increased the passenger fares by 2 paise per km for suburban and ordinary second class; 3 paise per km for mail/express second class; 5 paise per km for sleeper class; 10 paise per km for AC Chair Car, AC 3-tier and First Class; 15 paise per km for AC 2-tier and 30 paise per km for AC I. Even the price of platform tickets has been raised to Rs 5 from Rs 3.