Indian Railways to offer 25 percent discount in Shatabdi, Tejas

Indian Railways is set to offer up to 25 percent discount on trains such as Shatabdi Express, Tejas and Gatimaan Express, as per a senior official. The move is a result of the stiff competition faced by the Indian railways from low-cost airlines.

The Indian Railways will be announcing up to 25 percent discount in some of its trains that have low occupancy to bump up its ticket sales. The trains eligible for the discount include those that had monthly occupancy of less than 50 percent in the previous year. The discount will be provided on the base fare of trains. The charges such as GST, reservation fee, superfast tariff and others will be levied separately.

The discount will be given on the trains that have AC chair car and executive chair car. However, for trains like New Jalpaiguri-Howrah Shatabdi Express, Chennai Central-Mysuru Shatabdi Express and Ahmedabad-Mumbai Shatabdi Express, the existing discount schemes will be continued. 

The Railway Ministry has decided to give the power to the Principal Commercial Managers of the zones to introduce the discounted fare scheme in the identified trains.

The Ministry also laid down certain guidelines based on which the discount will be given. Following are some of the guidelines:

• The discount can be offered yearly, half-yearly, seasonally or during weekends.

• Once this scheme is introduced, no other discounts such as the graded discount in Shatabdi Express trains or Flexi-fare will be applicable.

• The discounted fares will be offered on all parts of the journey, be it the first leg, intermediate sections or the last part.

• Competitive fare should be a key criterion while deciding the discounted fare.

• Zones will have to identify trains with low occupancy by September 30. The zones will also need to make efforts to increase occupancy.

• The zones will also have to file a report after four months of the implementation of the scheme.
 
Background

The Indian Railways had introduced a similar scheme earlier by removing dynamic pricing from certain trains with low occupancy.

The railways had also discontinued the Flexi-fare scheme in 15 trains, in which the average uni-directional monthly occupancy was less than 50 percent.

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