Railway fares go up for second time in a week

Keeping in view the increasing oil prices and other financial constraints, Pakistan Railways on Saturday announced an increase in fares of all express passenger trains by 5 per cent and freight charges of all goods’ trains by 10 per cent.

The increase in train fares, which follows a hike of 15 per cent announced earlier this week, will take effect from June 21 (Tuesday).

According to the details, after the recent sharp rise in prices of petroleum products, the hike will be 5 per cent for inter-city, mail and express trains as well as other passenger trains. The fares of freight trains operating on branch lines across the country have been increased by 10 per cent.

The recent fare hike, which is in tandem with a steady inflationary trend and spike in fuel prices, will place a heavy financial burden on passengers travelling choosing the cheap travel across the country while limiting their mobility and routine business.

It may be mentioned that the prices of commodities, fruits, vegetables and other essential articles continue attracting an upward trend, making life of common people miserable.

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Earlier this week, Federal Minister for Railways Saad Rafique had announced that fares for express trains would be increased by 10 per cent while freight rates would see a hike of 15 per cent in view of the recent jump in fuel prices.

However, the railways minister said fares for normal passenger trains would see no increase to reduce the financial burden on low-income commuters. "Rising fuel prices are causing a fiscal loss of Rs8 billion annually or Rs740 million monthly to railways," he told reporters at a press conference at Railways Headquarters.

Saad Rafique said the hike in fares would result in a saving of Rs1 billion to the railways. He said the current revenue of railways was Rs53.3 billion while its deficit was more than Rs37 billion which was likely to swell to Rs45 billion.

Criticising the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government, he said it caused massive destruction to the PR — a department, according to him, was in profit during the PML-N’s 2013-18 regime.