Union Railway Minister Mukul Roy rolled back the Railway Fare Hike as proposed by Dinesh Trivedi

Union Railway Minister Mukul Roy rolled back the railway fare hike as proposed by Dinesh Trivedi in the first Union Rail Budget 2012-13 presented on 14 March 2012. Roy also struck down the plan to restructure Railway Board.

Roy withdrew the hike for second class suburban and non-suburban, and sleeper class travel fare by 2 paise, 3 paise and 5 paise per km. He also rolled back the hike of 10 paise per km for travel in AC chair car and AC 3-tier fare stating the middle class would be hit severely by such hike in fares.

The hike announced by Roy’s predecessor Trivedi was the first instance in 9 years when the fares had been raised.
All railway reform measures suggested by Trivedi such as setting up of an independent tariff regulator, restructuring of Railway Board on professional lines, and creation of posts of Member PPP and Member Safety was also ignored in the latest budget tabled by Roy.

Roy's budget paved the way for the cash-strapped railways to earn a mere Rs 300 crore from increased passenger fares instead of Rs 7200 crore that Trivedi budgeted for.

Trivedi's proposal to hike fares was estimated to generate additional revenues of Rs 6500 crore. However, following the rollback proposed by Roy the railways can now generate only Rs 1000 crore more.

Mukul Roy took charge as the Union Railway Minister on 20 March 2012 following the resignation of Dinesh Trivedi. Trivedi was forced to resign after he raised rail passenger fares in Union rail Budget 2012-13 and thus angered Trinamool Congress particularly Mamata Banerjee. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was opposed to his proposal to increase fares in the railway budget