Railways kicks off Give up Concession campaign

Tirupati: Now it's the turn of Indian Railways to initiate 'Give up Concession' campaign after Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas which started similar scheme 'Give it Up' to forego LPG subsidy in March 2015.

It may be recalled that only four per cent of people have responded so far to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal to voluntarily give up their LPG subsidy which clearly indicates that majority of the people were not willing to forego their subsidy.

The call was aimed at motivating LPG consumers who can afford to pay the market price for the cylinder to forego subsidy by opting for it on their own. The government thought that it can redistribute this subsidy by way providing new connections to poor families free of cost.

Going by the same line, the Ministry of Railways also mooted the idea of giving an option to senior citizens in 2017 itself to opt for concession only if they want it. Already, they have introduced the option in the IRCTC website and across railway booking counters through which senior citizens can opt for full concession or 50 per cent concession or no concession.

But, it is learnt that there is poor response from the beneficiaries. A booking clerk has said that they hardly see any person opt for no concession or 50 percent concession.

As the Railways has submitted their plan of action for 100 days to increase earnings, they mulled the idea of taking up the 'Give up Concession' campaign asking the people to give up the subsidy on the train tickets.

The Ministry was recovering only 53 percent of the cost of the ticket from each passenger and the remaining 47 percent is given as subsidy to the passengers which they thought can be reduced by propagating the scheme.

The Railway Board seems to have brought the proposal forward and create more awareness on it, following which the South Central Railway General Manager Gajanan Mallya unveiled the campaign poster on July 18. Presently, the male passengers over 60 years of age were entitled to get 40 percent concession while it is 50 percent for female passengers over the age of 58 years.

Railways want to reach out to the senior citizens of rail users to make them more aware on the availability of option to forego concession. The authorities have said that such moves will help modernise the system and offer better travel facilities to the passengers.

But, the senior citizens seem to be not willing to forego their concession. When The Hans India sought the opinion of a group of senior citizens, they immediately shot back, "Why should we give it up? Can the railways ask its employees to forego their benefits? They should think of some other avenues to increase their earnings and asking senior citizens to make sacrifices was not fair".