Badrul Ahsan :
The Railway Ministry has planned to increase the train fares by 7.8 percent from next month with a view to minimising losses. The Ministry will submit a proposal in this regard to the Prime Minister for decision.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways endorsed the plan yesterday in a meeting at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban. According to the plan, train fares would go up on different routes between Tk 20 and Tk 30 in the lower classes and between Tk 75 and Tk 135 in upper classes.
The fare of the Shovon chair on the Dhaka-Chittagong route would be raised to Tk 345 from Tk 320, while the AC chair fare would be Tk 654 from the present Tk 610.
The Ministry will raise the fare of a 20-feet wagon between Dhaka and Chittagong Port by Tk 700.
It is not the end. Ministry has devised a plan of raising fares every year under a formula, however, the rate will be lower than 7.8 percent as recommended for the current year.
This is the second time the government is raising the fares in four years.
Terming the hike logical, Railway Secretary Feroz Salah Uddin said train fares had not been raised timely in the past in accordance with the hikes of fuel prices and the salaries and benefits of Railway employees.
“We are not thinking about making profits. Our target is to minimize the losses,” he told The New Nation, adding that they would propose the government for minimum fare hikes every year, instead of increasing it after a long gap.
Apart from reducing the losses, he claimed that the hike would also help improve services. In 20 years, fares of both passenger and freight were raised by 50 percent in October, 2012.
“The fare is being raised for maintaining the railway’s service standard. It’ll be tolerable for passengers as the fare hike rate is lower than those of other mode of vehicles,” Railways Minister M Mazibul Hoque told reporters on Thursday after inaugurating WiFi connectivity at the Rail Bhaban.
All the railway stations of the country like Kamalapur, Dhaka Cantonment and Chittagong stations will be brought under WiFi connectivity gradually, the Minister said.
However, talking to The New Nation, many passengers condemned the move. Sabina Iftekher, a Chittagong bound passenger, said overall train services had not improved as promised by the authorities while hiking the fare in 2012.
She said that passengers would not get the benefit of planned fare hike unless the improvement of services with adequate number of modern trains and their operation on time.
Currently, BR has 339 passenger trains and 30 freight trains, operating on 38 routes across the country.
