News for railway passenger: Railways is reviewing the fares in view of the vacant seats in some short distance Vande Bharat trains. According to sources, seats are not being filled completely in some Vande Bharat trains with relatively short distances. In such a situation, the Railways is planning to make them attractive by reviewing their fares.
Fare will be reviewed
The fares of Vande Bharat trains like Indore-Bhopal, Bhopal-Jabalpur and Nagpur-Bilaspur are being reviewed. The seats in all these trains are running largely empty. According to official data till June accessed by PTI, only 29 per cent seats were occupied in the Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat train while 21 per cent seats were reserved in the Indore-Bhopal train. In this train which travels for about three hours, the AC chair car fare is Rs 950 while the executive chair car fare is Rs 1525.
Fare can be reduced
The longest journey of the country’s most modern and fastest Vande Bharat trains is about 10 hours while the shortest journey is of three hours. Fares are being reviewed in some of these trains to overcome the problem of seats remaining vacant. A senior railway official said that the thinking behind this is that passengers should get a comfortable journey in all Vande Bharat trains. We have reviewed the situation and are of the opinion that some Vande Bharat trains, especially short distance ones, would do better if the fares are reduced. We want more and more people to travel in these trains.
Railway’s efforts continue
Although, seats are almost full in Vande Bharat trains but in some trains this is not the case. Railway is going to make necessary changes to make them successful as well. So far, Vande Bharat trains are operating in 24 states and union territories of the country. Out of these, Kasargod-Trivandrum Express has 183% booking and is the best performing Vande Bharat train. Vande Bharat trains running between Gandhinagar-Mumbai Central, Varanasi-New Delhi, Dehradun-Amritsar and Mumbai-Sholapur also have more than 100 percent booking.
