Train travel to cost more from today. Here's why

Train passengers will have to pay two percent more from midnight Oct 6-7 to adjust for the increase in fuel costs.

The Railways has hiked the fares by about two percent and a passenger would have to shell out additional Rs 20 for a ticket costing Rs 1,000.

The revised fares would come into force from October 7, and would boost the revenues by Rs 450 crore.

The hikes have been made to offset the rise in fuel costs - a 7.3 per cent increase in the price of diesel and a 15.5 per cent hike in electricity charges.

The fares for second class ordinary (non-suburban) would increase by a maximum of Rs 5 in select distance slabs, while in the others there wouldn’t be any change in existing fares. The only category untouched was the second class ordinary (suburban) or second class monthly season ticket fares.

This is the second revision since January, when the government was forced to revise the fares after 10 years. It had then revised the cancellation and booking charges in the Budget.

The fare hike would mean that passengers travelling by Rajdhani Express running between Mumbai Central and New Delhi will have to pay additional Rs 65 for the IA, Rs 40 for 2A, and Rs 30 for 3A to the existing fare. The AC first class fare for aDelhi-Kolkata train will see a similar hike while Delhi-Chennai fare will go up by around Rs 100.Second class travel for New Delhi-Chennai train, will see a rise up to Rs 15.

For Mumbai alone, a monthly Churchgate-Virar season ticket will now cost Rs 15 more. A first-class ticket between CST and Kalyan for a single journey will be costlier by Rs5. On the Central line, a one-way first class ticket from CST to Dadar will cost Rs 5 more, while season passes will be costlier by Rs 5 to Rs 20 depending on the route.

The railways also decided to hike freight rates.

According to the statement, “the railways has now decided to revise passenger fare and freight tariffs linking it with Fuel Adjustment Component (FAC)”.

While the revised passenger fares will be effective midnight Oct 6-7, freight tariff will be effective from the midnight Oct 9-10.

The railways would earn around Rs450 crore in the remaining six months of the financial year due to fare hike and Rs.700 crore due to freight rate hike, said the statement.

In the Railway Budget 2013-14, a proposal to implement the FAC-linked tariff revision, bi-annually in sync with increase in fuel costs was introduced.

While the proposal was implemented in the case of freight tariffs from April 4, passenger fares were kept out of the purview of FAC-linked revision on the ground that these had been revised upwards after a gap of 10 years Jan 22, 2013.