[Babposa]

The new Railway Minister, Mr Mukul Roy, on Thursday announced a rollback of the proposed increase in passenger fares that would have impacted majority of railway passengers of AC-chair car, AC-three tier, second Sleeper class and second class. This action will take away the bulk loss of about Rs.7,000 Crs to the Railways for the year 2012-13 and it will lead to not only loss in Railways earnings but also affect for its future projects like gauge conversions, doubling of lines, electrification etc. For the past 10 years passenger fares are not hiked and the fares was revised with very small amount by Mr.Trivedi as per the recommendation of the high level committee. But now some portion of the fare hike was withdrawn by the new Railway Minister. Unless FM provide some huge subsidiary to Railways, the existing projects will not come soon.