In a move to make Mumbaikars aware about exactly how much loss the railways bears in running the local trains, the Western Railway (WR) from Friday began to issue tickets that carried details, in fine print, of the loss incurred. The bottom of last line of every ticket now reads, “IR recovers average of 36 percent of cost on suburban trains.”
Although the message does not directly say that it is making a 64 per cent loss, it is obvious the railways wants each commuter to have a clear picture about the financial loss being incurred for running the heaviest suburban system in the country. The decision comes directly from the Railway Board who has said that each and every division of the railway will now print information on their tickets in fine print the profit of running services.
“The people of Mumbai should know that we are losing 64 per cent of what we invest in the running the trains annually. We are unable to recover more than three-fourth of the money we spend on running the services and the commuters forget this and keep complaining about the lack of facilities given to them,” said an official on the condition of anonymity.
“We have been living off loans on high interests from the year 2000 when (the finances of the) Mumbai suburban began to dip into the negative. It is time that there is a change in the way we are recovering the costs,” added the official.
Another official said that the Indian Railways should allow both Central and Western Railway to charge Rs 10 for short distances and retain the subsidised ticket for long distances. “All journeys, for example from CST to Byculla should be Rs 10 instead of Rs 5. Anything that is eight to 10 kms should cost Rs 10 and then we shouldn’t touch the fare chart of the tickets to the moderately far and far off suburbs,” said another official on the condition of anonymity.
The WR has also begun to put out similar fine prints on long distance or express trains tickets purchased from any of the counters on its railway stations.
