Almost a month after it was set up, the fare fixation committee (FFC) for the city's first Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar metro has invited representations and proposals from the public as well as state agencies for determining the fares.
The Maharashtra government had in March formed the panel under chairmanship of retired E Padmanabhan, with former chief secretary Jayant Kumar Banthia and former law secretary T K Vishwanathan as its members.
The FFC in a public notice issued today said, "the FFC invites representations/ proposals from all interested persons, such as passengers, consumers, public bodies, MMRDA and all other organisations interested in the ultimate fare fixation that may be decided by the FFC".
"All persons interested may submit their representation either in writing or by email, to the FFC within three weeks," the notice said.
The FFC has also directed Mumbai Metro One (MMOPL) to publish this notice on all websites.
Currently, MMOPL charges fares in the range of Rs 10-40 to travel between Versova and Ghatkopar. For a smart card user, the maximum fare is a discounted Rs 32. The minimum fare is still Rs 10.
The state government had opposed the new fares and instead wanted slabs of Rs 9, Rs 12 and Rs 13 saying these rates were accepted by the Reliance Infrastructure-led consortium in the concession agreement.
RInfra, while increasing the fares, had argued the original cost estimated during the beginning of the construction of the metro had escalated to nearly Rs 4,000 crore from Rs 2,532 crore which necessitated a hike.
