Railways planning to levy fee on passengers for boarding/alighting at redeveloped stations

The fee will differ for every category: ₹50 for all AC classes, ₹25 for sleeper class and ₹10 for the unreserved class.

The Indian Railways is planning to levy a station development fee on passengers boarding or alighting at redeveloped stations.

The fee will be levied only after such stations become operational and added to the train tickets during booking. (Representational image)

A report carried by news agency PTI said the fee ranging from ₹10 to ₹50 will be charged from the passengers depending on their class of travel.

The fee will be levied only after such stations become operational and added to the train tickets during booking. The fee will differ for every category: ₹50 for all AC classes, ₹25 for sleeper class and ₹10 for the unreserved class.

This, however, will not be applicable for suburban train journeys, PTI quoted a circular issued by the Railway Board as mentioning.

Further, the platform tickets at these stations will also get costlier by ₹10, the circular said.

"Class-wise SDF for developed/redeveloped stations shall be charged as under: For alighting passengers at such stations, the SDF shall be 50 per cent of the rates indicated above. If both boarding/alighting such stations, in that case, SDF shall be 1.5 times of the applicable rate, the circular stated.

SDF shall be uniform across all such stations and shall be charged as a separate component plus applicable GST, for which instructions shall be issued separately, it added.

PTI quoted Officials as saying that the levying of the SDF will ensure a continuous revenue stream for the railways and will make the model financially viable for the national transporter to lure private players.

(With agency inputs)