Political protests mounted across the country on Monday against the rail fare hike, with a particular emphasis on rolling back the suburban train fares.
This is because suburban commuters, unlike long distance reserved passengers, are daily users of trains and are more likely to feel the pinch of a steep hike. For the Railways, the largest suburban users are in Mumbai, followed by Kolkata and Chennai.
The protests were not as sharp in Delhi and Chennai as they were in Mumbai.
Delhi commuters use the metro rail system, which is outside of the Railways’ ambit, and which has much higher fares compared to Railways suburban fares.
“There is a need on the part of respective State Governments to share part of the burden of loss-making suburban travel if they do not want fares to go up,” said an official. This is particularly so as the suburban rail segment in Mumbai makes lesser losses than that in Chennai or Kolkata.
Meanwhile, as the political noise mounted, top Railway Ministry officials, who were earlier maintaining a stance of no rollback, today softened their stance to “no comments”.
TMC wants rollback In Kolkata, the Trinamool Congress also sought a rollback of the fare hike on Monday.
However, there were no strong protests in Delhi or Chennai.
The hike in the rail fare, especially the substantial increase in suburban fare, is yet to percolate to rail passengers of Chennai. However, all the major political parties issued statements condemning the hike.
“I am yet to know about the actual hike,” said P Vararadarajan, an employee with a software firm who travels between Chennai Egmore and suburban Tambaram every day.