Across-The-Board Fare Hike Likely In Railway Budget

A steep across-the-board hike in passenger fares and freight tariff appears to be on the cards in the railway budget for 1997-98. The hike is necessary to meet the financial crunch on account of the recommendations of the fifth pay commission, cost overruns and proposed new projects.

Rail Bhawan sources indicated that the upward revision may not spare second class travellers who were left untouched in the maiden budget presented by railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan last year.

Officials said they had little choice but to exercise the hard option of hiking railway fares and freight rates to

offset an anticipated additional burden of about Rs 4,000 crore to implement the pay commission recommendations for railway employees.

 

Paswan has already held two rounds of discussions with Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, besides meeting planning commission members and finance minister P Chidambaram, to impress upon them the need to substantially increase the budgetary support from the existing level of 16 per cent of the total plan outlay.

With both the planning commission and finance ministry expressing their inability to enhance the budgetary support level for the railways,