In an interesting development, the TOI reports today…
Railway to charge ‘user fee’ at busy stations, tickets may c ..
Railways have been struggling with this for long, and the user fees idea has been existing for generations. The most significant change was when Airport’s started levying user fees (Delhi and Mumbai in 2008), and railways was to follow soon. Hence, the whole concern is WHY SO LATE?
a) They did not know
b) They felt they could never do it
I for one tend to believe in b) They felt they could never do it, but first what did they know.
Personal blogs are places where one can blow is trumpet, without being ashamed of it. So here I am.
While still with the railways, I did a project, where for one month I studied how could Lucknow station be made world class. With time at hand (I was on paid leave from railways, and was to quit in a month), I explored all possible ideas. And one of them was how to finance the stations re-development.
As part of a report titled (already existing here as part of an older blog entry) Rethinking PPPs: Building a world class railway station
A Proposal for Lucknow Charbagh Station, I had argued for a user charge in the executive summary, with the following justification:
The justification for user charges follows from the analysis of users of railways stations. Preliminary figures show that the station is routinely handling 1-1.5 lac people per day, but needs to be upgraded to handle 2 lac passengers per day to cater to the peak loads. A railway passenger with reserved ticket was found to pay an average ticket price of Rs 500/-for his journey. Similarly, an unreserved passenger is proposing to pay Rs 100/- (on average) for his journey. Like airports, a station usage fees of Rs 20/- for reserved classes and Rs 10/- for unreserved classes, yields an additional revenue of Rs 70 cr per year, and is more than enough for what is required to provide world class facilities to our station users.
The TOI article, saying that ticket prices would increase, needs to be qualified properly. Once again the TOI reporter is shooting in the dark, to sensationalize.
Having made this proposal, I was inquisitive after leaving railways, as to why don’t they do it. I put up this questions at all levels. The answers, that I got were like (not taking names, but these were the people making proposals), ‘No one would allow us to add this charge’; ‘We are a public body, how can we charge for station usage’; or ‘Airport usage fees needs be removed, public service means free service’. None of these arguments are convincing enough within themselves, and simply reflect just “They felt they could never do it.”
This is a sad situation, as when the bureaucrat/policy maker feels constrained to take honest and well meaning actions, one can hardly expect much from the organization.
Swapnil Garg's home on the WWW 
The Core to the query, “They felt they could never do it” lies in defining THEY?
Pricing in Government-run/ Govt-owned Service organizations, is not solely with Managers of the Organizations. The Pricing Decision, has another major P-(Politics). So the Pricing of Services, in Railways, is POLITICAL.
Are the Users willing to Pay?
Yes & NO.
Ask Mumbai Suburban users, they (most, if not all) are not willing to Pay Rs.1 (YES, Rs. 1) for using better maintained, better equipped washrooms on sub-urban platforms.
IR also has lounges (run by IRCTC), well patronised & decently priced.
So its not Commercial….
There exists a set that wants better services + is willing to Pay for it….
The bigger query is, Is there a Political Will to be ready to face:
AAM vs KHAAS
PAY-n-GET vs GET-n-FREE
Ultimately, being a Public Entity (In fact a Ministry), its a Public Good & the Final Decision by a Public Representative…..
Regards.
Rupesh
I have an alternative way of looking at it. A train ticket need be split into three parts — boarding charge, travel charge (accommodation charge + haulage charge) and destination charge. There is no political involvement in splitting it this way. Then comes the idea of Lucknow station charging Rs 20/- for deboarding, while New Delhi charging Rs 50/- and Gomtinagar charging Nil/-. The station developmental charge becomes incremental, and not like what made headlines, the day before. Train tickets to cost more! By user charge, train tickets do not need to cost more. The Get-n-Free is losing public empathy, and here is where the railway management has to play a role. When Indore Municipal commissioner makes a case of Rs 30/- collection from each house for garbage collection (and can get away with it), and every highway collects toll in the country, why is political will the excuse for railways! Always!