Train fare hike not enough
The June 1 rail fare increase will have little impact on the recurring annual loss of approximately 7.5 billion rupees, General Manager Railways Dr. Lalithsiri Gunaruwan said at a press conference yesterday.
The revenue last year had been 2.5 billion rupees while the expenditure stood at 10 billion rupees. The railway season ticket scheme had been a drain on the department funds, he said. Public servants paid only 15 percent of the fare and the private sector workers 40 percent. School children and university students paid only 10 percent of the fare for the season ticket, Dr. Gunaruwan said.
Employees of the railway were given season tickets at 5 percent of the fare. The cost of the entire concession on season tickets monthly was around 150 million rupees, he said.
With that money, he said, the department could buy a railway engine each month or 60 buses. Therefore, the request made to reduce the train fares was unreasonable as there had been no increases in train fares since1997. Bus operators had increased fares many times during this period. In 1997, bus fare per kilometre had been only 18 cents while the train fare per passenger per kilometre had been 21 cents, Dr. Gunarwan said.
The bus operators had increased the fare to 85 cents per kilometre but the train fares per kilometre had been increased only up to 49 cents per kilometre, he said.
Although there were 1.1 million public sector employees and 7.5 million private sector employees only around 100,000 used train season tickets while the others used buses and other modes of transport t, he said.
by Lakshmi de Silva
Source: The Island
Tags: bus fare, bus services, modes of transport, private sector employees, private sector workers, public sector employees, public servants, railway engine, railway season ticket, railways, rupees, season tickets, train fare, train fares
