Railways hike basic fares: Here’s how much more you may have to pay

The ministry of railways has decided to revise the basic passenger fare by 1 paisa per km for ordinary non-AC trains, by 2 paise per km for mail and express trains (non-AC coach) and by 4 paise per km for travel in AC classes.

Passengers will have to pay more to travel on several trains of the Indian Railways from January 1, 2020.

Passengers will have to pay more to travel on several trains of the Indian Railways from January 1, 2020.(Rajkumar)

The ministry of railways has decided to revise the basic passenger fare by 1 paisa per km for ordinary non-AC trains, by 2 paise per km for mail and express trains (non-AC coach) and by 4 paise per km for travel in AC classes.

A passenger will have to pay the hiked fare on trains such as Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, Duronto, Vande Bharat, Humsafar Express, Mahamana, Antyodaya Express, Garib Rath, Rajya Rani, Jan Shatabdi, Suvidha, Yuva and special trains.

There is no change in the fares for suburban (single journey fare) and season tickets (suburban and non-suburban). Also, there will not be any change in the reservation fee and superfast charge and the hike in fares will not be applicable to tickets already booked.

For the Delhi-Kolkata Rajdhani, which covers a distance of 1447km, the hike at the rate of 4 paise per km will be approximately ₹58. This is excluding the applicable Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Passengers will have to pay nearly ₹55 more if they want to book a ticket on the Delhi-Mumbai Rajdhani to travel a distance of 1386km and ₹97 on the Delhi-Bengaluru Rajdhani, which covers 2365km.

So, if a passenger has to travel 500 km on a Shatabdi Express, then the increase in ticket price would be ₹20.00.

The fare hike on the Shatabdi Express from New Delhi to Amritsar, which are 449km apart, will be approximately ₹18, for a distance of 513 km between New Delhi and Lucknow it will be ₹21 and ₹28 from the Capital to Habibganj for 705km.

For the Mumbai Central-New Delhi AC Duronto Express, which travels 1384km, the fare hike will be by nearly ₹55. The ticket on the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus Ernakulam Duronto Express between Kochi and Mumbai will cost ₹64 more for a distance of 1600km and ₹95 on the Yeshvantapur Delhi Sarai Rohilla AC Duronto Express for 2367km.

Before this, the Indian Railways had revised passenger fare five years ago in 2014-15.