Partial roll back of fare hike in suburban, 2nd class travel

Bowing to pressure from within and allies, the Railways today partially rolled back some of its stiff proposals by exempting second class suburban travel upto 80 km from the 14.2 per cent hike in fares and reduced the severity of hike for monthly season ticket-holders.
In reliefs that will mainly benefit lakhs of daily commuters mainly in metros and other big cities, the Railway Ministry announced that last week's across-the-board hike of 14.2 per cent in passenger fares will not apply to second class suburban journey upto 80 kms.
"There shall be no increase in second class suburban ordinary fare upto 80 kms," a Railway notification said.

The revised order also said the fare hike in the unreserved segment shall come into force from June 28 as against June 25 when the increase will be implemented otherwise.
The Railways also gave some relief to monthly passholders by reverting to 15 the number of trips for which they will have to pay for travelling unlimited times in a month. However, the hike of 14.2 per cent in the fares will apply to the MST.
Under the revised order today, the increase in the fares of monthly season tickets for upto 5 km will come down by Rs 50 from Rs 150 to Rs 100 as compared to the June 20 revision. For a distance upto 150 km, the benefit will be Rs 520 as compared to the proposed hike announced on June 20.

While announcing the across-the-board hike last week, the Railways had doubled the number of trips for which the commuters had to pay, which was 30 trips.