Did you know that Indian Railways incurs a loss of about Rs 30,000 crore a year in subsidising passenger fares out of which Rs 1,600 crore is for concessional fares?
The total amount of concessions given in the senior citizen category is about Rs 1,300 crore a year.
But then, something amazing happened in the last 3 months.
9 lakh seniors give up ticket subsidy in 3 months, as part of ‘Give up’ campaign and this has saved Indian railways 40 crores!
From July 22 to October 22, 2.16 lakh men and 2.67 lakh women gave up their full subsidy, while 2.51 lakh men and 2.05 lakh women decided not to avail 50 per cent of their subsidy – making the total number of passengers over 60 years to give up their subsidy at 9.39 lakh in three months. During the same period last year, only about 4.68 lakh senior citizens gave up their subsidies – 2.35 lakh men and 2.33 lakh women. (source).
Isn’t this amazing?
