New Delhi: Indian Railways earned Rs 403 crore from tatkal ticket charges, Rs 119 crore from premium tatkal tickets, and Rs 511 crore from dynamic fares during 2020-21, even as much of its operations remained suspended throughout the year due to the Covid pandemic, revealed an RTI reply.
Passengers in these three categories are usually last minute travellers who avail these services mostly for emergency travel by paying premium charges. In a reply to a RTI filed by Madhya Pradesh-based Chandra Shekhar Gaur, Railways said that it earned Rs 240 crore from dynamic fares, Rs 353 crore from tatkal tickets and Rs 89 crore from premium tatkal charges in the financial year 2021-22 till September.
In the 2019-20 financial year, when there were no restrictions in train operations, the national transporter earned Rs 1,313 crore from dynamic fares, Rs 1,669 from tatkal tickets and Rs 603 crore from premium tatkal tickets.
The data from the railway ministry comes a month after a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways remarked that the charges levied on tatkal tickets are "a little unjustifiable" and put a huge burden particularly on passengers who are financially weak and are forced to travel in urgency to meet their kith and kin, even for a very short distance.
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The committee desired that the ministry devise measures for a pro rata fare for distance travelled. Tatkal ticket charges have been fixed as a percentage of fare at the rate of 10 per cent of basic fare for second class and 30 per cent of basic fare for all other classes subject to minimum and maximum. Under the premium version, which was introduced in 2014 in select trains, 50 per cent of tatkal quota tickets are sold using the dynamic fare system.