New Delhi: Facing passenger ire over Flexi-fare ticketing system, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday announced its review that could lead to cooling down of rail fare.
Addressing his first press conference after taking over as Railways Minister, Goyal said over the past three weeks he had received complaints of high railway ticket prices due to dynamic pricing. “We will soon take a decision on that. There will be some changes,” he told reporters here.
The Flexi-fare system was introduced in September last year under which only 10% of the total seats on Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto category trains were sold at the normal fare. The prices of the tickets increased by 10% with the sale of every 10% tickets.
Between September last year and June the railways earned additional revenue of Rs 540 crore on account of flexi-fares. However, this also led to vacant berths on these category of trains that prompted railways to offer 10% discount on vacant seats from December last year.
At the same time, Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha made it clear that there will not be any increase in railway fares. Goyal also announced increasing the speed of 48 mail express trains to bring them in the superfast category.
MRP on Food Packets
Goyal also announced that directions will be issued to catering service providers on railways to display the maximum retail price on food packets/casseroles served to passengers on trains.
The minister said he had received complaints of overcharging by the catering staff on trains and the move of MRP on food packets would help the consumer.
