Travelling by the Delhi Metro will be more expensive from Tuesday as the new fare hike comes into effect, PTI reported. The new fares range from Rs 10 to Rs 60.
Those travelling beyond 5 km on the Delhi Metro will have to pay Rs 10 extra, while journeys falling in the 2-5 km distance slab will cost Rs 5 more. Smart card users will continue to get a 10% discount on each ride, and if they travel during non-peak hours, they will get an additional 10% off.
The announcement came late on Monday night after the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation’s board refused to interfere in the fare hike proposed by the fare fixation committee. The decision has met with stiff opposition from the Delhi government.
The Delhi Assembly had passed a resolution on Monday against the fare increase. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia claimed that the decision to increase fares was a conspiracy to benefit private cab services. Sisodia claimed the Metro is being run on the money of the people who do not want fares to be increased, The Hindu reported.
“A conspiracy is being hatched so that Ola and Uber benefit,” Sisodia said. “This is being done deliberately so that fares of the Metro are more than that of taxis of private companies.”
The DMRC had said that even if fares are increased in October, the prices would be cheaper than any other urban metro rail system in the country. The metro service runs under an equal equity partnership between the Delhi government and the Centre.
On Tuesday afternoon, some volunteers from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad barged into Metro Bhawan in the Capital to protest against fare hike, News18 reported.
Opposition from the Delhi government
On Sunday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that the government is ready to pay half the amount that the Centre has asked for, to fund the city’s metro service, in order to stop an increase in fares. He was replying to Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who had asked the Delhi government to pay Rs 3,000 crore annually for five years if it insisted on blocking the next increase in Delhi Metro fares. Otherwise, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation will be “starved of finances”, leading to “deterioration of the quality of services it stands for”, Puri had said.
Kejriwal has earlier called the proposed increase in fares “anti-people” and had pledged to not let it happen. Fares on the Capital’s metro transit system were last revised in May. Before May, the structure was last revised in 2009.
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