Rajdhanis, Shatabdis ‘popular’ trains, so fare cut is cut

Of the 830 pairs of trains being operated on the Railways network, 544 pairs have now been classified as “popular trains” by the Railways Ministry.

While it may not mean much to unsuspecting passengers, this move by Rail Bhavan has ensured that fare reductions on AC-I and AC-II tier classes of travel, as mentioned in this year’s Rail Budget, are available on just 286 pairs of Mail and Express trains and have been halved on 65 per cent of total trains running.

Ministry officials said that trains having an occupancy level of 60 per cent and above were classified as “popular”.

This latest revision of the list of popular trains has meant an addition of 111 pairs of trains to the category as compared to last year, effectively reducing the number of trains which will actually offer the reduced AC-I and AC-II fares in their totality.

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Lalu Express popular, populist

Presenting his fifth consecutive Rail Budget, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav today played to the gallery by unveiling some populist proposals - cuts in passenger fares to take on low-cost airlines, no hike in freight rates (see chart) - and, unlike last year, did not spend much time tom-tomming about the cash surplus. Instead, he chose to deliver a speech targeting the ordinary passenger, coming up with some ideas which promise to improve functioning of the Railways.

To set the house in order, Lalu, for the first time, announced that on-board cleaning on all Rajdhani, Shatabdi, superfast Mail and Express trains will be done by professional agencies which will provide trained personnel and equipment for the job. With this, Lalu managed to outsource train cleaning to private players.

FARES REDUCED AC-1 7% AC-II 4% Rider: Reduction would be halved during peak periods and in popular trains CASH SURPLUS BEFORE DIVIDEND in 2007-08 (Rs crore) 25,000 Reduced fares, increased volumes and profit

Given the deep penetration of mobile phones in the country, Lalu said his Ministry was exploring the option of issuing reserved and unreserved rail tickets through mobile phones. The Railways also plans to issue wait listed e-tickets.

He unveiled an interesting plan to absorb licensed porters in railways without creating new posts. The plan is to organise a one-time recruitment process wherein licensed porters would be appointed as gangmen or given Group D posts after a screening process. Since the Railways plan to promote a large number of gangmen to gatemen at manned level crossings, porters will fill up the gangmen posts that will fall vacant. The railway network has around 38,000 licensed porters, many of whom stand to gain from the scheme.

A 50 per cent concession in second class passenger fares for HIV/AIDS infected persons, travelling to nominated ART centres for treatment, is another move that will earn public goodwill for the Railways. Reaching out to the masses, Lalu announced a plan to provide platform shelters in smaller stations. As many as 748 `D` category stations and all `B` category



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