‘Rlys reviewing fares of some low-occupancy Vande Bharat trains with aim to reduce prices’

 The Railways is reviewing the fares of some short-distance Vande Bharat trains with low occupancy with an aim to reduce prices in order to make them more viable for people, sources said on Wednesday.

Barring a handful of such low occupancy trains, most of the services of this semi-high speed train currently is running with full occupancy, according to official data.

Vande Bharat trains like the Indore-Bhopal, the Bhopal-Jabalpur and the Nagpur-Bilaspur express, along with some others are likely to fall in this category, the sources said.

According to end of June data sourced by PTI, the Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat service recorded just 29 per cent occupancy whereas the return journey of Indore-Bhopal Vande Bharat Express had only 21 per cent occupancy. The journey between the two cities takes around three hours and costs Rs 950 for the AC Chair car ticket and Rs 1525 for the Executive Chair Car per passenger.

The fare of this train could be reduced significantly, the sources said.

The longest journey of the Vande Bharat Express trains is around 10 hours and the shortest is of about three hours.

"The idea is to ensure that all the Vande Bharat trains work towards ensuring passenger convenience. We have reviewed the situation and we believe that some of the Vande Bharat trains, specially of shorter durations between two to around five hours will do much better if their prices are decreased. We want more and more people to use these trains.

"While most of the Vande Bharat trains are running at 100 per cent occupancy, a handful are not and we are making the changes needed to ensure they do," said a senior official.

Another train whose fares are under review is the Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bharat Express which has an average occupancy of around 55 per cent. With a travel time of around 5 hour 30 minutes, the general belief is that it would do much better if the prices were brought down.

The fare for the executive class from Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bharat Express is Rs 2,045 while that of the Chair Car is Rs 1,075. This train was replaced by the Tejas Express in May due to low occupancy.

The Bhopal-Jabalpur Vande Bharat Express which has clocked 32 per cent occupancy while the return journey on Jabalpur-Bhopal Vande Bharat service has shown 36 per cent occupancy is also likely to see a fare reduction, the sources said.