Jaitley defends rail fare hike

Defending the NDA government’s decision to hike railway passenger fares by 14.2% in all classes and freight charges by 6.5%, the finance minister Arun Jaitley said, “The Railway minister has taken a difficult but a correct decision. India must decide whether it wants a world class Railway or a ram shackled one. By withdrawing the countermanding order, the present Railway Minister has taken a challenging decision,” he added.

He blamed former railway minister Mallikarjun Kharge for withdrawing his own order of hike in fare approved by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He said Railway minister Sadanand Gowda has only approved the decision “what the Railway Board, the Rail Minister and the then Prime Minister had concurred,” said Jaitley.

Jaitley said, “The railway minister has taken a difficult but a correct decision…The Indian Railways for the last few years have been running at a loss. The only way that Railways can survive is when users pay for the facilities that they avail.”

“The choice before Gowda (railway minister) was whether to allow Railways to bleed and eventually walk into a debt trap by following the policy of the UPA government or implement the decision which the UPA government had taken to increase the fares for both passenger and freight but did not have the courage to implement,” Jaitley added.

Congress leader Manish Tewari slammed Jaitley for blaming UPA for fare hike.

“They must stand by the decisions they have taken. It will not wash for BJP to blame the previous government for decisions like a hike in rail fares,” Tewari said.

Meanwhile Congress carried out protest on Saturday too against the hike in many cities including in Delhi. The youth Congress staged protest outside Rail Bhavan on Saturday afternoon. Police had to use water cannons to disband the protestors.

Delhi Congress President, Arvinder Singh targeted the government by saying, “BJP had promised relief from inflation when they came to power. What sort of relief is this? Everything has become more expensive. Congress will keep up this pressure till BJP does not roll back the hike.”

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