Rail Fare Hike: Minister from Narendra Modi's cabinet -- Arun Jaitley reveals Truth on Facebook
The decision to raise passenger fares by 14.2% and freight charges by 6.5% effective June 25 will help Indian Railways raise an additional Rs 8,000 crore in the financial year.
Protesting against BJP's decision, Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken said, "This comes at a time the prices of onions and potatoes have skyrocketed. Also, there is concern about delay in the monsoon and the ongoing problem in Iraq is also having an effect on global crude prices."
However, prime minister Narendra Modi-led government claimed that it was only implementing a decision that the previous UPA dispensation had cleared and then frozen.
Meanwhile, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley revealed the "truth" while writing on social networking site Facebook. Read Jaitley's complete text:
The Truth of Railway Fare Hike
The Indian Railways for the last few years have been running at a loss. The only way that Railways can survive is when users pay for the facilities that they avail. The passenger services have been subsidized by the freight traffic. In recent years even freight fares have come under pressure.
On 5th February,2014 when the UPA was in power, it was the Railway Board which proposed a 5% increase in the freight rates and a 10% increase in the passenger fares. The proposal was to rationalize the freight rates with effect from 1st April,2014 and the passenger fares with effect from 1st May,2014. Even as the Interim Budget of the Railways was yet to come, the date 1st May,2014 was chosen hoping that the General Elections would be over by that day. The Railways had proposed that this increase would give the Railways an additional revenue of Rs.7900 crores. Armed with this decision, the then Railway Minister Shri Mallikarjuna Kharge met the then Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh on 11th February,2014. The then Prime Minister approved the hike and suggested that both freight and passenger fare should be implemented with effect from 1st May,2014 itself.
The
Railway
Board
accordingly
notified
this
increase
on
16th
May,2014
when
the
Election
results
were
being
declared.
This
decision
gave
effect
to
what
the
Railway
Board,
the
Rail
Minister
and
the
then
Prime
Minister
had
concurred.
The
Railway
Minister
developed
cold
feet
and
in
the
evening
of
16th
May,2014,
even
after
the
UPA
had
been
defeated
in
the
Elections,
he
countermanded
the
order
of
the
Railway
Board
so
that
theoretically
the
decision
taken
by
him
and
the
then
Prime
Minister
is
implemented
by
the
Railway
Minister
of
the
NDA
Government.
By
withdrawing
the
countermanding
order,
the
present
Railway
Minister,
D.S.
Sadananda
Gowda
has
taken
a
challenging
decision.
The
choice
before
Shri
Gowda
was
whether
to
allow
the
Railways
to
bleed
and
eventually
walk
into
a
debt
trap
by
following
the
policy
of
the
UPA
Government
or
implement
the
decision
which
the
UPA
Government
had
taken
to
increase
the
fares
for
both
passenger
and
freight
but
did
not
have
the
courage
to
implement
.
A
loss
making
railway
will
provide
below-par
services.
It
will
eventually
not
even
have
the
resources
to
pay
its' bill.
India
must
decide
whether
it
wants
a
world
class
Railway
or
a
ramshackled
one.
The
Railway
minister
has
taken
a
difficult
but
a
correct
decision.
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