Asia Bizz: From April 1, 2012 onwards, passengers travelling in AC 1 and AC 2 tier classes with the Indian railways will have to pay more. The fare of the higher classes have been revised and will come in to effect from Sunday onwards. The fare has also been hiked for the executive class and first class as per the Rail budget 2012-13, which was announced recently by former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi.
Surprisingly, the revised tariffs will also be applicable on tickets which have been issued in advance for the journey which will commence on or after April 1, 2012. One of the senior official from the railway ministry said that in case the tickets are already issued at the pre-revised rates, the difference in the rates will be recovered from the passengers either by the TTEs in the trains or by the booking offices before the commencement of the journey.
The fares have been increased to 10 paise per KM for first class, 15 paise per for AC 2 and 30 paise per KM for AC 1 from April 1, 2012. Moreover even platform tickets which used to cost Rs. 3, will now cost Rs. 5, the official added. The actual proposal was to hike the prices in all the classes including AC III, sleeper class, suburban and second class in the Rail budget.
But the new railway minister Mukul Roy decided to roll back the fares in these classes. In the year 2011-12 the railways have earned Rs. 28,000 crores revenue from passenger fares. With the hike in the proposed railway budget by the former minister Dinesh Trivedi, the national transporter was expected to earn Rs. 36,000 core in 2012-13 with five percent expected growth in the passenger volume. With the recent hike the railways is expected to earn Rs. 400 crores.
