The Revised Passenger Fare will come into Effect from 7th October 2013 while Revised Freight Tarrif will come into Effect from 10th October 2013 . In the Railway Budget for 2013-14, the proposal to implement Fuel Adjustment Component (FAC)-linked tariff revision, bi-annually in sync with movement in fuel costs in either direction was introduced.
While the proposal was implemented in the case of freight tariffs w.e.f. 01.04.2013, passenger fares were kept out of the purview of FAC-linked revision at that time, primarily on grounds that these had been revised upwards after a hiatus of ten years only recently, i.e. w.e.f. 22nd Jan’2013.
The assessed impact of FAC-linked revision is as under:
Passenger Fares:
Ø No increase in either Second Class Ordinary (Suburban) or Second Class MST fares;
Ø Fares for Second Class Ordinary (Non-Suburban) would go up by a maximum of ₹ 5/- in select distance slabs, while in the other distance slabs there would be no change in existing fares.
Ø In all other classes, the revised fares would be only about 2% higher than the existing fare.
Ø Anticipated incremental earning would be around ₹ 450/- crore in the balance six months of the financial year.
Freight Tariffs:
Ø An across-the-board increase of about 1.7% in freight rates.
Ø Anticipated incremental earning would be around ₹ 700/- crores in the balance six months of this financial year.
Railways is expected to mop up about Rs 1250 crores from the hike in the last six months of the current fiscal, sources in the ministry said.
The suburban and non-surban fares would, however, remain untouched.
The decision on the fresh round of hike has been taken under the system of fuel adjustment component (FAC) about which an announcement was made in the 2011-12 rail budget.
Railways has taken into account the additional burden of 7.3 per cent increase in diesel price and about 15 per cent in electricity hike.