 "No hike in basic fares; reservation, tatkal charges raised")
Though there has been no increase in basic passenger fares, yet increase in supplementary charge for superfast, cancellation, tatkal and reservation charges have been increased. This would fetch railways Rs 881 crore in 2013-14.
Despite this hike, Indian railways is looking at around Rs 25,000 cross-subsidization of the passenger segment in FY 14, confirmed a senior railways official.
With this, the railway is looking at the passengers earning target of Rs 42,210 crore in 2013-14 which is around 30% increase over the passenger earnings of 2012-13. The number of passengers is expected to increase by 5.6%.
The increased earnings is owing to increase in passenger fares ,incremental traffic and increase in supplementary charges.
In the Budget speech of 2013-14, Bansal said, “There are number of charges which have not been revised for last several years. These charges are in the form of compensation of cost actually incurred by railways in rendering relevant services. I propose marginal increase in supplementary charge for superfast trains, reservation fee, clerkage charge, cancellation charge and tatkal charge.”
However, I propose to abolish the concept of enhanced reservation fee with a view to simplify the fee structure, having already discontinued development charge in January this year, Bansal added.
Of Rs 3,300 crore that the railways was expecting to be wiped out from the passenger fare segment because of diesel hike, now the railways would just be bearing the burden of Rs 850 crore in passenger segment.
The railways has offset the diesel hike with the introduction of Fuel Adjustment component in freight and increase in supplementary charges in passenger front.
A senior railways official said, “The increase in passenger fares will vary according to the base fares but it will be very minuscule as low as 1% for the reserved category passengers.”
Bansal has been very cautious of keeping the passenger fares insulated from the fuel component. “The freight tariff will be having a Fuel Adjustment component (FAC) which would be reviewed every six months. However, we would be absorbing around Rs 850 crore of the additional burden because of the fuel hike in the passenger segment,” said a senior railways official.
Experts believe that railways had to walk a tightrope in this Budget with 2014 being election year.
The railways earned Rs 1,200 crore additional revenue in 2012-13 owing to the passenger fare hike.
However, it did not add much in the additional revenues of the railways.
“The additional Rs 1,200 crore just made up for our passenger losses in 2012-13.We were already suffering losses in passenger segment because of the volumes of traffic on long distances,” said a senior railways official.
According to the Budget speech of 2013-14, “Considering the partial rollback of passenger fare increase, mitigated somewhat by the subsequent fare adjustment in January 2013, the revised passenger earnings target is proposed at Rs 32,500 crore, i.e. reduction of Rs 3,573 crore over budgeted estimate of Rs 36,073 crore in 2012-13.”
The number of passenger trains has increased from 8,897 in 2001-02 to 12,335 in 2011-12. Yet the losses on these operations continue to mount , increasing from Rs 4,955 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 22,500 crore and is estimated to be around Rs 24,600 crore in 2012-13.