Without giving any direct reply to questions by the media on the restoration of concessions, Vaishnaw said, “The Indian Railway is already offering 55 per cent concession on train fares to every train passenger.”
New Delhi: Here comes a big update for senior citizens, who for a long time, were demanding concession in ticket fares on trains. Will the Indian Railways restore the pre-COVID era ticket fare concession to them? Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said every passenger gets 55 per cent concession on train journeys. He said this regarding demands to restore pre-Covid fare concessions for senior citizens and media persons.
Will Concession in Ticket Fare be Restored?
Without giving any direct reply to questions by the media on the restoration of concessions, Vaishnaw said, “The Indian Railway is already offering 55 per cent concession on train fares to every train passenger.”
Vaishnaw said this while he was in Ahmedabad to review the progress of the ongoing bullet train project among other things.
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Railway Offered 50% Concession During COVID Era
Before the COVID-19 lockdown imposed in March 2020, the Railways offered 50 per cent concession on train fares to senior citizens and government-accredited journalists.
Railway operations were completely shut down during the lockdown but when its full-fledged resumption in June 2022, the Railway Ministry didn’t restore these concessions and since then the issue has been raised on various platforms, including in both houses of parliament.
However, the Railway minister maintained a similar stand in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on various occasions when questioned by many fellow parliamentarians.
Earlier, responding to an RTI application filed by Madhya Pradesh-based Chandra Shekhar Gaur, the Indian Railways said that it earned about Rs 2,242 crore from approximately 15 crore senior citizens in the financial year 2022-23.
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Passenger Capacity To Increase Up To 1000 Crores
In the meantime, the Railway Minister in an exclusive interview with Financial Express, said the Indian Railways has planned to increase its passenger capacity up to 1000 crores by 2030. He also talked about various measures and initiatives being undertaken to improve the regime of railways in the country.
To a question about the issues faced by the passengers regarding the confirmation of train tickets from IRCTC, the minister said that IRCTC is working constantly to improve the facility of ticket reservations.
He said in one case, one technology that the Railways implemented recently, the sections on which they implemented has given a 24 per cent increase in the number of Reserved seats or confirmed seats.
Talking about the allotment of a vacant seat, the minister said that station-wise reservation quota and Artificial Intelligence-based algorithms determine the allocation of seats to the passengers based on their journey details.
