In what could come as good news for passengers, the railway ministry has decided to review the fares of Vande Bharat Express trains that have low occupancy rate. The move is aimed at making such trains affordable for people, sources said.
Officials said the rationalisation will be only for specific routes. They added that there is a possibility of around 5-10% reduction in the fares of some of these premier trains that cover shorter distances of around 200-300 km and where Shatabdi trains are also in operation.
Data show that the occupancy rate of recently launched Vande Bharat Express trains on four new routes such as Indore-Bhopal, Jabalpur-Bhopal, and Madgaon-Mumbai have very low occupancy rate in the range of 21% to 55%. While trains on other routes are running with full occupancy, sources did not rule out the possibility of some future routes not getting enough number of passengers.
(With inputs from agencies)