Travel became expensive for the elderly, there will be no discount in the ticket, citing losses, the Railway Minister refused to reinstate the concession in the fare

An important news has come out for those traveling by rail. The concessions given to senior citizens in tickets during the pandemic have now been completely abolished. Railways has refused to resume the facility of concessional tickets for senior citizens and other categories of passengers including sportspersons. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav says that the fares of the passenger segment of the railways are already very low and the railways is facing huge losses due to concessional tickets being given in different categories.

Loss making railway

The Railway Minister has informed that the railways suffered a loss of Rs 1491 crore in the year 2018-19 due to discount on rail tickets to senior citizens. This is followed by Rs 1636 crores in 2018-19 and Rs 6.18 crores in 2019-20, Rs 1.90 crores in 2020-21 and Rs 5.55 crores in 2021-22. The Railway Minister said that the restoration of rail concession will have a worse impact on the financial health of the Railways. Therefore, it is not possible to restore the concessional train ticket service for all categories of people including senior citizens.

Train travel expensive

Let us tell you that before March 2020, in the case of senior citizens, the railways had provided a discount of 50 percent for women and 40 percent for men to travel in all classes. Apart from this, the minimum age limit was fixed at 58 for elderly women and 60 years for men. After the Corona period, all the concessions given to them have been abolished. Now with the suspension of concessions, rail travel is getting costlier for senior citizens.