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Vijaya Pushkarna
Vijaya Pushkarna

RAILWAYS

Railways' Give it up campaign on IRCTC bookings for seniors

INDIA-POLITICS-RAILWAYS-BUDGET

If you are above the age of 58 and booked railway tickets recently through the www.irctc.co.in, you would have noticed a new pop up window asking, “Would you like to give up Senior Citizen Concession?” This window, prompting people to give up the concession, was introduced barely three weeks ago. 

Thus began the railway ministry's 'Give it Up' campaign, motivating senior citizens to voluntarily give up the concession that women over the age of 58 and men over the age of 60 are eligible for. This is much like the way people were motivated to give up their LPG subsidy. 

The ministry had even considered raising the age for senior citizens to 70, but has not taken a call on it so far.

Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramaniam had, for the first time, pointed out in the Economic Survey 2015-16 that  while the fares paid by the poor travelling in unreserved seats were subsidised 69 per cent, the better-off, travelling by air conditioned first, second and sleeper classes were also beneficiaries of subsidy of 34 per cent, in a chapter titled, “Bounties for the Well Off”.

The decision to jump into this “give it up” campaign was inspired by a Avtar Krishen Kher, who read the details of the printed ticket for his family's train journey from the national capital to Jammu, and gave a cheque for Rs 950 to the IRCTC.

Beginning June 2016, the railways has been specifying the subsidy amount on every printed ticket. 

The railways is said to be losing about Rs 35,000 crores annually on account of various subsidies. The ministry has been in touch with with financial think tanks to mull how to reduce the loss on account of subsidy.

Incidentally, according to the Economic Survey 2015-16, the rich (the top 70 per cent of population based on expenditure distribution as per NSS data) consume 92 per cent of the subsidy, while the poor (the bottom 30per cent) cost the government only 8 per cent. The effective subsidy rate was 53 per cent and the implicit subsidy to the rich amounted to Rs 3,671 crores. 

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Topics : #railways

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