The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has slammed the flexi-fare scheme and said there is a need to review it. The Auditor has said the scheme has led to rise in earning at the cost of drop in the number of travellers.
The CAG also said the airfare was cheaper than these trains on some routes.
Since he took over last September, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on several occasions said the flexi fare scheme introduced by his predecessor Suresh Prabhu is being reviewed and that he had also constituted a separate committee with members drawn from other fields including aviation and hospitality industry. The committee was constituted in December 2017 and the report was submitted in January 2018. However, nothing moved beyond this.
The Railways Ministry had implemented the flexi-fare scheme in all Rajdhani, Duronto and Shatabdi trains in September 2016. The country’s top audit watchdog said the scheme led to decrease in ticket sales in all classes except sleeper class of Duronto trains.
During the last Parliament session, the CAG had also criticised the railways catering, cleanliness and punctuality issues. The Auditor said in its latest report criticising flexi fare that passengers expected better quality service with enhanced fare.
“Even in AC 3 class, which was one of the most profitable classes, the occupancy dropped significantly after the introduction of flexi fare and the vacant berths increased from 0.66 per cent in pre-flexi period to 4.46 per cent in post-flexi period. In terms of absolute numbers, the premier trains carried 2,40,79,899 passengers during post flexi period as compared to 2,47,36,469 passengers during pre-flexi period,” said the CAG in its report.
The auditor, however, mentioned that the scheme has earned the Railways Rs 552 crore in one year. “The Railways earned Rs 552 crore from passenger earnings from the premier trains post flexi fare system during September 9, 2016 to July 31, 2017, there was de-growth of 2.65 per cent in number of passengers despite the availability of berths/seats,” the CAG said.
The CAG said the national transporter needs to fine tune to the scheme so that not only revenue but also the number of passengers increases. “There is a need for review and fine-tuning in the scope of the scheme so that not only more revenue is earned but a number of passengers also increase, thus, further enhancing revenue,” said the report.
The auditor also said it has found that instead of paying the higher fare, commuters prefer to travel by mail/express trains over the Rajdhani/Duronto/Shatabdi trains, despite a higher travel time. “A comparison with airfare for different Advance Reservation Periods in 13 sectors also showed that airfares were cheaper than the respective train fares for a large number of routes/sectors,” said the report.