Jayalalithaa demands rollback of railway fares

CHENNAI: Describing the revision of railway fares as unjustifiable, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today said the latest proposal would put an additional financial burden of about Rs 1,150 crore on the people and demanded its immediate 'rollback'.

The Railways has decided to increase the passenger fare and freight tariff by about two per cent from tomorrow to offset the financial burden arising out of increased input cost.

"For the next six months about Rs 1,150 crore financial burden has been placed on people through the revision of railway fares. Through this, low and middle income groups will suffer more. I strongly condemn the proposal to increase the fares and urge the Centre for its rollback", she said in a release.

Referring to the early practice of revising fuel prices every six months, she said the Union Government has subsequently led (the oil marketing companies) to revise it every month.

Similarly, the practice of hiking railway fares every two years has been revised to every six months, she said, adding, "This is a betrayal to the common man".

She alleged that if the UPA government had prevented various scams like the 2G Spectrum scam, Coal scam and Commonwealth Games scam, revising fuel prices for every month may have been "avoided".

"At a time when the price of essential commodities are increasing and fuel prices have been hiked, how far is it justifiable for the Centre, to revise the price of Railway fares?," she asked.