Railway Best Offer Senior Citizen: Before the pandemic, Indian Railways used to offer special discounts for senior citizens. However, this service is now closed. The Railway Minister’s statement has come to the fore on whether the discount on rail tickets will be restored soon or not. Let us know about it in detail.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav indicated that the concessions given to senior citizens in Railways cannot be restored for the time being. He said that a subsidy of Rs 59,000 crore was given last year for passenger services and the pension and salary bills of the public transporters are huge.
Vaishnav said in response to a question by Independent MP from Maharashtra, Navneet Rana. He was replying in the Lok Sabha on when the concession given to senior citizens in train travel would be restored.
Railway has counted the subsidy given to the passenger
The Minister said that Railways has given a subsidy of Rs 59,000 crore for passenger services, which is a huge amount and is even bigger than the annual budget of some states. He said the annual pension bill of the Railways is Rs 60,000 crore, the salary bill is Rs 97,000 crore while Rs 40,000 crore is being spent on fuel.
He said, ‘We have given subsidy to 59,000 passengers last year, new facilities are coming. If new decisions have to be taken, we will take them. But for now, everyone should look into the conditions of the Railways. Let us tell you that there were reports that the Indian Railway Board is planning to change the age limit for senior citizens and is planning to limit the concession to only certain categories of tickets. However, earlier, this concession was available to all categories of senior citizens.
What were the speculations?
Earlier there was news that Railway Board is planning to give concession to senior citizens who are 70 years or above for general and sleeper class. Railways had said that the idea is to reduce the cost of these concessions while retaining the subsidy for senior citizens. However, no terms or conditions were finalized.
Senior citizens had fun before Corona
Prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, senior citizen concessions were available for women passengers aged 58 years and above and for men aged 60 years and above.
As per the Railways’ plan, women passengers were given 50 per cent discount on ticket price in all classes and men were given 40 per cent discount. After the outbreak of the pandemic, the Indian Railways withdrew the concessional rates.
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