LAHORE, Aug 26: The Pakistan Railways will earn Rs590 million through 10 per cent fare hike made effective from Monday (Aug 25).

The decision of raising fare for passengers travelling for 100 kilometres and above has hit 48.5 per cent of the railways 69,003,000 customers. It is the first fare increase during the current calendar year.

Additional general manager (passengers) Iqbal Khatri admits the amount (to be recovered through the fare hike) is quite meagre as compared to the “extra financial burden” of Rs1.2 billion the railways has to bear due to 15 per cent increase in salary and pension since July, 2003, under a federal government direction.

“The recent hike on PoL prices will cost us another Rs1.0 billion.”

According to him, the 15 per cent increase in parcel charges will fetch railways Rs83 million only.

Mr Khatri says that the trains running on sub-sections and small routes are causing loss to the institution. However, their operation could not be suspended due to their contribution in providing cheap transportation to the general public.

Railway documents say that the passengers travelling for 501 or more kilometres are only 20 per cent of the total commuters but they contribute 68.2 per cent to the total income from passenger trains.

Those who travel from 251 to 500 kilometres are 10.5 per cent who contribute 12.8 per cent to the total income.

At least 18 per cent who travel for 101-250 kilometres contribute 10.76 pc to the earnings.

Twenty-three per cent commuters use train to cover 41 to 100 kilometres whose contribution is just 5.37 per cent.

The lowest earning of 2.84 per cent is fetched from those who travel for one to 40 kilometres.

The railways has earned Rs1,073.6 million from July 1 to Aug 20, 2003, while the income for the same period last year stood at Rs1,022 million.

According to Mr Khatri, there is no fare hike for non-stop trains running on the Lahore-Rawalpindi and Lahore-Faisalabad routes.