New Delhi, Feb 26 (ANI): Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday announced concessions for students that include free monthly season tickets for girl students up to graduation and for boy students up to 12th standard.
At present, free monthly season tickets for second class travel between school and home are provided to girl students up to 12th standard and boy students up to 10th standard.
Along with this, he has announced several new concessions for rail travel. These include concession for senior lady citizens, concession for Ashok Chakra Awardees and for AIDS affected persons.
Lalu Prasad also announced that passenger fare concession for lady senior citizens would be increased to 50 per cent from 30 per cent at present for all classes of travel.
Ashok Chakra awardees will now be provided facility to travel in Rajdhani and Shatabadi trains on card passes.
For AIDS patients, a concession of 50 per cent has been announced in second class passenger fares for travel to nominated ART centres for treatment.
Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Indian Railways will collaborate in running a Mother-Child Health Express of seven coaches on a pilot bases for providing medical facilities to the mother and the child.
This train will be run by railways at concessional fares and would have facilities like delivery operation room and child health centre.
Lalu Prasad today also announced reduction in passenger fares of various classes.
While introducing the Railway Budget for 2008-09, Lalu said there would be a reduction of one rupee in the second-class fares of up to rupees fifty for non-suburban mail or express and ordinary passenger trains.
The second-class fares of all mail or express and ordinary trains will be reduced by five per cent for the tickets costing more than fifty rupees per passenger to benefit long distance passengers, he said.
The Railway Minister also announced a reduction in the fares for newly designed Sleeper Class coaches by two per cent.
Fare reduction by two per cent for the newly designed AC 3 tier and AC Chair Car coaches has also been announced. This reduction will be only half for popular trains and during the peak period.
To make the fares for higher classes more competitive, Lalu Prasad announced reduction of fares for AC-I class by seven per cent and AC-2 tier by four per cent. This reduction would only be half for popular trains and during the peak period.
With this reduction, the process of rationalization of AC class fares has now been completed. (ANI)
