Misery Tax By Railways

Railways have just announced the introduction of flexi fares in Rajdhani, Duranto and Shatabdi express trains, in which the fare will keep increasing by 10% after 10% seats have been booked and the maximum figure will touch one and a half times the normal fares. Added to these will be the reservation charges, super fast charges, compulsory barely edible food charges and the service tax which will keep increasing as fares increase. It may be that this step has been taken to increase the revenue of the railways or to keep in with the flexi fares of airlines and cab operator’s surge pricing. An estimate puts that the railways may be able to generate a maximum revenue of 500 crores by this but at the same time many of the First AC and A 2 tier customers as well as the waiting list and RAC customers may decide to go by air or other modes of transport depending on the distance rather than waiting for the confirmation of berth at high price, except for those who travel on free passes in these classes and whose figure is quite high.

The railways may increase revenue but at the same time will get a lot of negativity  and ill feeling from the general public and if you can covert this and the political criticism and loss of face into revenue then the railways may very well land up into losses rather than profit.

Railways already have a tatkal scheme where a passenger pays a higher amount if he books a ticket within last two or three days and this tatkal consists of about 50% of the total seats. Adding this flexi fares means that you have increased the time limit from two days to a long period which may extend to about slightly less than four months before the departure of the train with increasing amount.

Normally a majority of persons who book tickets at the last minute book are done due to some emergency.  An emergency could be due to a sudden interview call, problems at home, sudden meetings or business contract and lastly and more importantly a medical emergency of self or family member. All these can be classified as emergencies not because of late planning but due to sudden problems faced by an individual beyond his control. I call them miseries for the simple reason that these are beyond the control of individual and these disturb your mind, clear thinking process and urge one to reach early to help the needy. Introduction of flexi fares can therefore be aptly called a ‘Misery Tax”, which has been levied on a passenger to remind him that he has to pay his because he is faced with a problem or misery. Railways provide a social service to the masses where transportation is provided at an affordable price and hence levying of this misery tax goes against this basic concept and instead of helping the individual in his misery you are compounding it by increasing or making profit on his misery. This is not only true for railways but also to all the other service providers who use flexi fares or surge pricing.