The Hindu Business Line : Hikes unlikely in Railway budget

Track record
Fares increased several times for some goods.
Rates for moving containers hiked about 5 times in two and a half years.
Routes attracted surcharge all through the year.
Railways rapped for increasing passenger fares in a `non-transparent' manner.

TRACKING TIME: The Union Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, with the Ministers of State, Mr Naranbhai Rathwa, and Mr R. Velu, at a meeting in the Capital on Sunday. — Ramesh Sharma

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New Delhi Feb. 25 The Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, like in the last three budgets, is not expected to announce any increase in freight or passenger fares in his fourth budget, which he is scheduled to present in Parliament on Monday.

However, despite his "no across the board rate hike" announcement, the fares for some commodities and some passenger services may still move upward during the year, as it has in the past.

Rail transportation fares for coal, iron ore, manganese ore, bauxite, limestone, minerals, containers, fertilisers, clinker, cement, food grains, sponge iron, leather, de-oiled cake, household goods, bricks and parcels, amongst others, have gone up during the last two years — in fact, fares have moved up several times for some of the goods.

"Moving one tonne of iron ore from Bailadila mines to Visakhapatnam port used to cost Rs 403.70 paise as on October 2004.

Now, the costs are up by over 70 per cent — about Rs 703.84 paise," pointed out an industry source.

During the same period, the cost of carrying one tonne of limestone, dolomite, increased by almost 45-47 per cent for certain stretches.

Fares for moving containers have been revised upwards by the Railways about five times during the last two and a half years.

As a part of its "dynamic pricing move" — the Railways initially imposed a busy season surcharge for three months from April-June 2006, and at the end of busy season, it brought in a "busy route surcharge" — which meant that the routes were to attract surcharge all through the year.

By allowing higher loading (carrying capacity) for iron ore and coal routes, the Railways has made it mandatory for the customer to pay for the entire carrying capacity (which could be as high as 65 tonnes) irrespective of actual volume of loading.

Not that the passengers were spared from such unannounced hikes.

In the last budget, the Railways had announced that it would convert 200 mail and express trains into superfast trains.

However, it did not point out that the passengers travelling in such trains would have to pay Rs 30 (for AC Classes) and Rs 20 (for Sleeper Class) as "superfast charges".

Indian Railways was subsequently rapped by a Parliamentary Committee for increasing passenger fares in a "non-transparent" manner with reference to such moves.

The Standing Committee had asked Railways to "refrain from such deceptive practices".

It had criticised the policy of the Railways of levying additional charges "just after passing the Rail Budget without taking the approval of Parliament."

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