Railways may double railway ticket fares
Sri Lanka railways will almost double rail fares to reduce losses and its dependence on government handouts as fuel prices continue to move up, officials said.
From Monday fares of privately owned buses were raised by 27.2 percent and state-run buses by 17.0 percent. Rail fares were last raised in 2005, but bus fares have been raised a number of times in between.
Sri Lanka Railways chief Lalithasiri Gunaruwan said the railways were now charging 50 cents per passenger kilometre compared to almost one rupee for buses.
This indicated a need to almost double fares. Transport minister Dallas Alahapperuma however has asked railways to keep fares just below that of buses.
Except for a few routes where the rail track was slightly longer than buses, Gunaruwan said the new rates would be lower than bus fares.
Last year the state railways lost 7.5 billion rupees. Though it had running expenses of around a billion rupees a year it was only able to get 2.5 billion rupees in revenue due to under pricing of fares.
A 30 rupee hike in diesel to 110 rupees a liter last week is expected to push up operating costs by a further 900 million rupees a year.
Gunaruwan said when he was a university student rail fares were higher than buses, but now rail fares were half that of the bus fare. While ordinary citizens were paying 50 cents a passenger kilometre to travel on railways, state workers were paying only 5 cents a passenger kilometre, minister Alahapperuma said.
Railways own employees paid only 3 cents a passenger kilometre. The railways had 17,000 employees.
Railways now carried about 4.0 percent of the country’s commuters. Three-wheeler taxis are now estimated to carry around 3.0 percent.
Gunaruwan said not adjusting the rates and putting the costs on the government meant that the burden would ride on the backs of everyone else, including those that did not use transport.
“Though we say the government is bearing the cost, the government is the people,” he said.
“If railway passengers do not pay the fares it will have to paid by some one else in the form of value added taxes or higher prices.”
State-run Sri Lanka Transport Board bus service also lost 4.0 billion rupees last year. It had 37,000 employees of which 6,000 were excess.
Minister Alahapperuma says it is more cost effective for the government to keep excess employees at home and pay them a salary as the government would save on overtime and other costs.
Unlike minister Alahapperuma who seems to be concerned about the financial health of the rail system, successive politicians in the past have mis-used state bodies to buy votes through under-pricing their output and stuffing them with supporters.
Sri Lanka’s private buses run only on the fees paid by users.
State institutions and their excess employees are a terrible burden on the poor and are usually run with massive perks for their heavily unionized, over-staffed workers.
But through repeated political rhetoric private citizens are persuaded that state firms provide a ’service’. Private enterprises on the other hand are demonized by politicians as being profit oriented.
However, any railway system has extra expenses that private buses do not have to bear. Railways have to maintain their own tracks in addition to rolling stock. But buses have highways maintained by the national budget for roads.
Source: Lanka Business Online
Tags: bus fare, bus fares, bus services, commuters, diesel, fuel prices, government handouts, losses, ordinary citizens, rail fares, rupee, rupees, sri lanka railways, state railways, three wheeler
