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| Sunday, 28 November 2004 |
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Bid to offset railway loss: Cabinet approval sought to raise fares despite public protest By Anura Maitipe The Transport Ministry has sought Cabinet approval to increase railway fares to offset the annual loss of Rs. 2.6 billion to the Department, a Ministry spokesman told the "Sunday Observer" yesterday. "The Railway Department required Rs. 4.4 billion for the year 2005 for its maintenance, repairs etc. The annual revenue of the Railway Department has drastically decreased during the last few years. It had earned Rs. 1362 million in 2002 which dropped to Rs. 1321 million in 2003. This loss has further aggravated due to rise in oil prices in the World market", he added. The spokesman said, "there are 16,422 permanent employees in the department with 1104 casual workers. But the work output of these employees are highly inadequate. For instance, in the year 2003, there were 225 derailments and, 585 locomotives were off the track, owing to want of repairs and breakdown due to the negligence of railway workers. This has also contributed to the current loss of the department". The other reason for this loss is the gradual decrease of the length of the track laid down islandwide. The total length of track covered by the department was 868300 kilo meters in 1994 which had been reduced to 859200 kilo meters in 1995 and it had further dropped to 807700 kilo meters in 2003, he pointed out. In 1970, in terms of transportation of goods, it was 65 per cent but now it had dropped to a mere 10 per cent and this had resulted in a further loss to the annual revenue, he noted. The Railway Department needed at least 153 power sets to meet the current passenger demand, but at present, only 130 power sets were available for use of passenger services. Under these circumstances, the department had no other option but to increase its fares to off set the recurrent loss and the rising expenditure, he added. The majority of the railway commuters were of the view that it was unfair to increase the fares without providing a better service, since there were undue delays in arrival and departure times. In other words, most of the trains including those operative at peek hours in the morning and evening carrying office workers were subject to these delays, which greatly inconvenienced them. Some office commuters said: "Due to a big increase in rail traffic, most of the trains are jam-packed even after peak hours. The rail commuters are strongly opposed to a fare hike at this juncture as there appears to be no improvement at all in the rail services for the past so many years". |
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