Railway Minister rules out fare hike

Kapurthala, May 28 (UNI) Railway Minister Lalu Prasad today said Railway fares would remain unaffected even if the government enforced hike in the prices of diesel and other petroleum products.

Talking to reporters at the Rail Coach Factory (RCF) premises here today, he said that no hike would be effected in rail fare even if government decided to increase price of diesel.

The Minister also assured to examine reported anomalies and technicalities which led to hiden increase in journey fares and ticket cancellation and other surchages.

He said that the ministry did not intend to increase fare indirectly outside the rail budget but he would check if any administrative or accounting procedure or technicality had led to such increase.

"Some MPs had also infirmed me of such happenings and I will look into the matter," Mr Prasad said.

The Minister was here to inspect the ongoing work on the assembling of Garib Rath--AC sleeper coaches at the RCF workshop here.

He said that the four Garib Raths, part of the pilot project of plying fully airconditioned Jansatabdis, between Hazrat Nizamuddin-Chennai, Hazrat Nizamuddin-Bandra, Hazrat Nizamuddin-Patna and Saharsa-Amritsar would star running from October next.

He said that in the next phases of the project these Garib Rath trains would run on all Rajdhani routes.

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