Hike in rail fare ruled out

LUCKNOW, Nov 1 (UNI) — Union Minister of State for Railways Digvijay Singh today ruled out the possibility of a hike in the rail fare, saying the resources for development of Railways would be made available by commercial use of the railway property.

Speaking at a "Meet the Press Programme’’ of the up press Club here, he said the Railways were facing resource crunch at the moment but hike in the fare would be only the "last’’ resort for the government.’’ Instead the government would try to generate resources from some of the untapped sources’’,he pointed out.

He said a plan would soon be chalked out to identify properties of the Railways which were lying abandoned all over the country.’’ We can easily use this property commercially to pool in resources,’’ he added.

Mr Singh said the government could take cue from other countries where commercial complexes had been built on railway properties. Citing example of Minto Bridge in New Delhi and similar posh locations of Mumbai, he said the use of railway properties could well rope in money which would be sufficient for the development of this sector.

"The consumer is our last weapon to generate additional resources’’, he said while ruling out any hike in the rail fare.