Railways may lower fares of Vande Bharat on short-distance routes

The fares of Vande Bharat trains on the Indore-Bhopal, Bhopal-Jabalpur, Nagpur-Bilaspur routes and a few more are being reviewed.

Indian Railways is in the process of reducing the fares of a few short distance Vande Bharat trains, registering low occupancy. This, the railway officials said, is being done to make the fares feasible for people.

The railway officials said this is being done to make the fares feasible for people (HT PHOTO)

“Fares of Vande Bharat trains on the Indore-Bhopal, Bhopal-Jabalpur, Nagpur-Bilaspur routes and a few more are being reviewed and may be reduced for attracting more travellers,” an official close to the development told HT. “The Indore- Bhopal Vande Bharat, which has a travel time of around three hours, recorded just 29% occupancy in June and its return route recorded around 21% occupancy,” the official added.

Similarly, the official said that the Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bharat Express (with a travel time of around 5 hours and 30 minutes) was observed to have recorded 55% average occupancy and Bhopal-Jabalpur Vande Bharat Express (a 4.5 hour journey ) that recorded 32% occupancy is also being considered to see a fare reduction.

Currently, a passenger has to shell out ₹950 for the AC Chair car ticket and ₹1,525 for the Executive Chair Car for the Indore-Bhopal Vande Bharat train. Similarly, the fare for the executive class from Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bharat Express is ₹2,045 while that of the Chair Car is ₹1,075. It costs ₹1,055 for an AC chair from Bhopal to Jabalpur while an Executive chair car ticket costs ₹1,880. However, fares are different in its return journey. It costs ₹955 for an AC chair and ₹1790 for an Executive Chair Car.

Shri Prakash, former Member (Traffic) at railway board told HT, “The railways should assess the demand of a route before commencing it. By not studying their clientele, they will not be able to increase their occupancy, as seen in the shorter Vande Bharat routes.”

“The railways also need to understand that if the cost of the tickets is more expensive that roadways, or other trains in the route, then people will not prefer travelling in these semi- high-speed trains that are not even helping to reach their destinations faster,” he added.

“After reviewing the situation, the board believes that Vande Bharat services that run for durations between three to five hours will have more occupancy rate if their prices are decreased,” a senior railways official told HT

“Most of the Vande Bharat trains are running at 100% occupancy, but as a few of them are not, our aim is to ensure that they too see good passenger load,” he added.

They said that a few of the Vande Bharat services were accepted well by the people and were running full. These include; Kasaragod- Trivandrum with seat occupancy of 183% per cent and its return leg with 176% occupancy, Gandhinagar-Mumbai Central Vande Bharat Express with 134%, Mumbai Central-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat Express with 129%, Varanasi-New Delhi Vande Bharat Express with 128%, New Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat Express with 124%, Dehradun-Amritsar Vande Bharat Express 105%, Mumbai- Solapur Vande Bharat Express with 111% and Solapur-Mumbai Vande Bharat Express has seen 104% seat occupancy.