Free train travels of sitting and former Lok Sabha members over the last five years have cost the Indian Railways exchequer Rs 62 crore, which included nearly Rs 2.5 crore in the pandemic-hit 2020-21. While sitting MPs are entitled to use the railways’ first class air-conditioned or executive class for free, their spouses, too, can avail free travel under certain conditions. Former MPs are also entitled to travel in any train in AC-2 tier along with a companion or in AC-1 if alone.
In the response to a Right to Information (RTI) application, the Lok Sabha Secretariat said it has received a bill of Rs 35.21 crore from the Indian Railways for the travel of sitting MPs and Rs 26.82 crore for former MPs during 2017-2018 to 2021-22.
According to the response, the MPs and ex-MPs used the Railway passes even during the pandemic-hit year of 2020-21 when their bill was Rs 1.29 crore and Rs 1.18 crore, respectively. The Railways’ pay and accounts department forwards the bills to the LS Secretariat for processing. The Railways has recently put on hold an array of concessions it offered to certain categories of passengers, including senior citizens. While there was subdued anger among certain sections over the move, the discontinuation of the subsidy given to senior citizens has drawn a lot of ire. According to official data, between March 20, 2020 and March 31, 2022, the Railways did not offer concessions to 7.31 crore senior citizen travellers. These included 4.46 crore males over the age of 60, and 2.84 crore females over 58 and 8,310 transgender people.
Last year the Rajya Sabha Secretariat also found randomly that 87 per cent of the total cost of journeys have not been undertaken and neither were cancelled but the Secretariat had to reimburse to the Railways. In an advisory the Rajya Sabha noted that from the details of debit claims raised by the Ministry of Railways, multiple bookings were being made by some members in various trains departing from the same/different stations to different destinations for the same day.
The Rajya Sabha Secretariat has to make payments to the Ministry of Railways even for those bookings which are actually not utilised by the members. In respect of a sitting member too, the analysis done by the RS Secretariat revealed the actual journeys during January 2019 amounted to only 15 per cent of the total claim of Railways, forcing the Secretariat to pay 85 per cent extra for journeys not undertaken.