Senior citizens can once again get 50 percent discount on train ticket fares. Indian Railways may soon restore the concession available to senior citizens, which was discontinued during the Corona epidemic.
A committee of Parliament has urged the Ministry of Railways to consider reinstating the exemption given to senior citizens in train fare. In this, there has been a demand to restore the relaxation of ticket fare to senior citizens in sleeper class, 3rd AC.
If the Ministry of Railways considers this appeal, then senior citizens can get exemption once again. However, in December 2022, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav made it clear that the discount on ticket fare cannot be restored at present. He told the reason behind this that the pension and salary bill of the Railways is very high. The burden of expenditure on Railways is more than before.
53 percent discount was available
According to the information received from the Ministry of Railways, all the citizens traveling in the train get an average discount of 53 percent on the fare. Along with this, Divyangjans, students and patients get many types of concessions apart from this exemption. Senior citizens were getting such exemption earlier also, but it was withdrawn in March 2020 during the Corona epidemic. Now there is a demand to restore it again.
Discounts were available in all trains
According to the report, the committee noted that the Indian Railways used to give 40 per cent concession in fares to men who were 60 years of age or above and 50 per cent concession to women if the minimum age was 58 years . Let us tell you that senior citizens were getting these concessions in rail tickets in all Mail, Express, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto trains. The Railways withdrew this discount on train ticket fare during the Corona period.
