So Un-Fare! Suspension of ticket concessions derails commuters

Nischit N | NT

Life is returning to normal post the pandemic but people commuting by trains are feeling a bigger drain on their wallets than ever before. The Indian Railways has announced that it plans to resume normal services of passenger trains in a phased manner in recent days after several requests from the states and from passenger welfare bodies. This means trains that were cancelled will resume operation, those that operated as ‘Covid specials’ will be regularised and unreserved passenger trains will be open to the public once more. The South Western Railways, which cancelled 72 trains in May this year due to the lockdown in Karnataka, also operates many regular passenger trains as Covid specials. The latter ran without the usual concessions, including the 50 per cent rebate for senior citizens. Since these are largely suburban and shorter intra-state routes, often used by daily commuters, the lack of concessions has hit them hard. Despite the suspension of these rebates, these ‘special’ trains operate as they did before the pandemic, without any Covid protocols in place, whether it’s social distancing or added sanitization measures. Meanwhile, passengers continue to pay between 25 and 30 per cent extra. “The entire country has been unlocked, these trains should be regularized also to operate more unreserved trains,” argues railway activist Krishna Prasad. According to the reports, after the full unlock, SWR added very few unreserved coaches for the 16 long distance trains and few fully unreserved Diesel–Electric Multiple unit (DEMU) and Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) trains with-in Karnataka. “No Covid protocol is being followed on the train itself, passengers don’t wear masks and there is no sanitization. Why are they being called ‘special’ trains? However, senior citizens especially are being hit hard by the fares. Yes, they say it is to recover losses when trains weren’t operating but the entire country has been unlocked now.” There are 53 categories of concessions being offered, including those for senior citizens, students, sportspersons, medical professionals and so on. Even war widows and farmers were major beneficiaries of these subsidies. However, as trains were cancelled, it was decided to grant concessions only for persons with disabilities (Divyangjan) and four other categories. Commuters also complain that the SWR is using the Covid situation to eliminate all types of concession without touching Railway Passes, Suburban Rail Fares and Calcutta Metro Fares. Manjunath, a senior citizen who travels regularly by train, says, “We are happy that the SWR has commenced operations of the trains. They are also starting a new unreserved express train. Many villagers can also make use of the services but the problem is there is no Concession, which many of us senior citizens depend on.”