For those who thought that they would miss Holi, at their pre-decided destinations, the Railways would experiment to adding colours by introducing trains but then that will come at a price.
Aiming to serve the twin objectives, of catering to the Holi rush as well earning additional revenue, Railways will next week run two premium trains with costlier tickets for Mumbai and Jammu as part of the 17 Jai Hind Premium Express announced in the Interim Budget last month. The Delhi-Mumbai Premium Express will run for two days on March 14 and 16 while the Delhi-Jammu Premium train will be pressed into service on three days — March 14, 16 and 21.
For the return leg, the Mumbai-Delhi Premium Express will be available on March 15 and 17 and the Jammu-Delhi Premium Express will run on March 15, 17 and 22. Taking a cue from the airlines, railways decided to run Premium trains on the dynamic fare system for busy routes.A senior Railways Ministry official said bookings for the Premium trains will start from Monday. “Tariff for these trains will be determined by demand with the aim being to boost revenues. Tickets for premium trains can only be booked online on the IRCTC website,” said the official.
The official said that there are seasonal and occasion-specific instances when demand for travel by certain train goes up and passengers, on such occasions, should be prepared to pay more to undertake journey Tickets for the premium trains can be only booked as per the availability as no wait-listed tickets will be issued for these. The trial between Delhi and Mumbai during Christmas and New Year yielded 48 per cent more. A cap on the maximum would be placed, based on class and sector; but the minimum fare would be the base rate of the Rajdhani Express and Tatkal charges. Encouraged by that, Railways announced in this year’s Rail Budget that it would run such trains on 17 busy routes. “The fare for premium trains is likely to increase depending on the demand intensity,” said the official.