'Rail fare hike needed for maintenance of public services'

Government had to hike railway fares as maintenance of public services comes at a cost, information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said today.

Government had to hike railway fares as maintenance of public services comes at a cost, information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said on Thursday.

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"The maintenance of standards in public services comes at a cost. That cost has to be defrayed in a public private partnership," Tewari tweeted on social networking site twitter.

On Wednesday, railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal had announced an across-the-board hike in fares of all classes from midnight of January 21 to net an additional Rs. 6,600 crore a year.

The announcement, which was a made only about a month ahead of the Railway budget, is the first such increase in Railway fares in nearly a decade.