CHENNAI:Soon, a journey from Tirunelveli to Chennai on a special train to clear the holiday rush may cost passengers an additional Rs 100. The Railway Board has issued a circular stating that zonal railways could charge tatkal ticket fare for special trains.
The revenue-boosting scheme for Railways comes after discussions by the Railway Ministry to run all special trains as premium trains, for which the price of tickets would increase with demand. The circular states that “Trains that are not run as premium ones based on dynamic pricing will be run on tatkal fare.”
The decision on which special trains will have tatkal fare is left to the zonal railways that need to review the train’s demand before taking a decision.
The circular stated that if the demand was high on just one of the train’s routes, for example from A to B, then the tatkal fare would apply only to that route. For the other route without much demand, i.e. B to A, it would be regular fare.
Recently, to cope with the rush during summer holidays, Southern Railways announced it would schedule a number of special trains between Chennai and Tirunelveli.
A sleeper class ticket on these trains cost Rs 385, the same as a regular superfast train. If the Southern Railways implements the circular’s directive, a ticket on the same special train will cost an additional Rs 100.
This policy follows recommendations made in a white paper by Indian Railways, which stated that there was an increasing need to earn additional revenue from coach operations.