Withdrawal of concession for senior citizens earns Railways over Rs 5,800 cr in four years: RTI
New Delhi, Apr 1: The Indian Railways earned over Rs 5,800 crore additional revenue from senior citizens after withdrawal of concessions in train fares four years ago, responses under Right to Information Act revealed.
On March 20, 2020, the Railway Ministry withdrew concessions in train fares offered to senior citizens after a countrywide lockdown was announced due to Covid-19.
Before that, the Railways used to offer 50 per cent concession to female and 40 per cent to male and transgender senior citizen passengers on train fares.
Since its withdrawal, senior citizens have to pay full fare at par with other passengers for train journeys. As per Railways norms, male and transgenders, who are 60 and above and females who are 58 and above are considered senior citizens.
Multiple applications filed under RTI Act by Madhya Pradesh-based Chandra Shekhar Gaur at different points of time suggest that from March 20, 2020, till January 31, 2024, the Railways have made an additional revenue of over 5,875 crore.
“I filed three applications under the RTI Act. In the first application, the Railways provided me additional revenue data from March 20, 2020 to March 31, 2022. In the second application, it gave me data from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023. Since I filed the third application in February 2024, I got the data from April 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024,” Gaur said while sharing the copies of the replies.
He added, “Since the replies from the Railways are year-wise and gender-wise, we can easily find out the additional revenue collected by it from March 20, 2020 to January 31, 2024.”
The responses shared by Gaur show that in almost four years about 13 crore male, nine crore female and 33,700 transgenders senior citizens took the train journey paying a total revenue of approximately 13,287 crore.
“Calculating 50 per cent concession for female and 40 per cent for male and transgenders senior citizen passengers gives a figure of over 5875 crore,” Gaur said.
Questions related to the restoration of concession for senior citizens have been raised at various platforms, including both houses of the Parliament.
However, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw without giving any direct reply maintained that the Indian Railway offers 55 per cent concession on train fares to every train passenger.
“If a train ticket to a destination costs Rs 100, the Railway is charging only Rs 45. It is giving Rs 55 concession,” Vaishnaw had said during a press briefing in January 2024.
Gaur said that since the present government has only withdrawn concessions rather than offering any new one, “it shows that before Covid more concessions were being offered than just Rs 55 on the purchase of a train ticket”.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
