Railway fares to be hiked from 21 January 2013: Railway minister

Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on 9 January 2013 announced that the rail fares would be hiked for all passengers from 21 January 2013 including the AC-1 and AC-2 tier passengers, who were affected in early 2012.

The hike announced will be of 2 paise per km to 10 paise per km across classes. All fares are supposed to be rounded off to 5 rupees and there will be no fare hike in the Railway Budget. The fare hikes are higher than what was proposed in the Rail Budget 2012.

Fares of Ordinary Second Class (suburban) trains will go up by 2 paise per km 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 km, while it will be 6 paise in Sleeper Class.

Travellers by AC Chair Car and AC Three Tier will have to shell out 10 paise more per km, 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 km, 15 and 30 paise respectively in the current year's budget.

As per the railway minister the slowdown has further impacted railways' earnings, adding that the fare hike will help raise an additional 1200-1300 crore rupees in the remaining period of current fiscal.

Also, as per the minister the Kolkata metro rail fares will not be impacted, adding that the annual incremental increase in earnings including passenger growth is expected to be about 6600 crore rupees.

Railway Minister Pawan Bansal had stated his support for a fare hike immediately after taking over in October 2012. He stated that the decision to hike the fares was imperative as lack of revision in the last 10 years has had a telling effect on the railway finances.