No hike in rail fares but additional charges on tickets levied

Pawan Bansal does not intend to pass on the impact of deregulation of diesel price to consumer

The Railway Budget for 2013-14 today spared passengers from any further hike in fares but raised various other charges on tickets along with freight tariff of less than 5%.

Presenting the Budget in the Lok Sabha, Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, who had effected an across-the-board hike in passenger fares only last month, said he does not intend to pass on the impact of deregulation of diesel price for now and the Railways will absorb a burden of Rs 850 crore on account of this.

The first Congress minister to present a Railway Budget in 17 years, Bansal adopted Fuel Adjustment Component introduced by former Trinamool Minister Dinesh Trivedi which will be dynamic in nature and change in either direction with revision in fuel cost twice a year.

He said this may result in an upward revision of freight tariff, effective from April 1, this year, by less than 5%.

In his 75-minute speech which was drowned in opposition slogan-shouting towards the end, Bansal said there are a number of supplementary charges which have not been revised for last several years.

"I propose to effect marginal increase in some of these. These include supplementary charge for superfast trains, reservation fee, clerkage charge, cancellation charge and tatkal charge," he said, without specifying the quantum of these charges.

Bansal, however, proposed to abolish the concept of enhanced reservation fee with a view to simplifying the fee structure, having already discontinued development charge in January this year.

In January, the minister effected an across-the-board hike in passenger fares that would net Rs 6,600 crore a year.

However, the subsequent hike in diesel price and electricity charges put an additional burden of Rs 3,300 crore on the railways which is projected to see a loss of Rs 24,600 crore in the current financial year, up from Rs 22,500 crore in 2011-12 in passenger traffic segment.

Bansal said the proposal for setting up of Railway Tariff Regulatory Authority has been formulated and was at the stage of inter-ministerial consultations.

The Budget proposes introduction of 67 new Express trains, 26 new passenger trains and extension of 57 others.

It also contains a slew of concessions like complimentary passes to recipients of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Dhyan Chand awards in First Class and 2nd AC and Olympic medalists and Dronacharya awardees in Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.

With regard to passenger amenities, the Budget proposes provision of free Wi-Fi facilities on several trains, progressive extension of bio-toilets on trains and induction of Next-Gen e-ticketing system capable of issuing 7,200 tickets per minute against 2,000 now.

As many as 1.2 lakh users can access tickets simultaneously under the proposed upgraded system against 40,000 now.

Touching on financial performance for 2012-13, Bansal said loading target has been revised to 1,007 Million Tonnes against 1,025 MT in budget estimates due to economic slowdown.

Gross Traffic Receipts have been fixed at Rs 1,25,680 crore in revised estimates, short by Rs 6,872 crores over Budget estimates.

Ordinary Working Expenses have been retained at Budget Estimate level of Rs 84,400 crores, while pension payments have increased by Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 20,000 crores.

Dividend liability to the government has been fully discharged. The Budget shows an 'excess' of Rs 10,409 crores as against the Budget amount of Rs 15,557 crores. Loan of Rs 3,000 crore taken in the current year has been fully repaid along with interest. Operating Ratio has been recorded at 88.8%, as compared to 94.9% in 2011-12.