Railways to extend 'Give it up' to all fare-concession holders
Buoyed by "Give it up" scheme's success with senior citizens, Indian Railways is set to extend the scheme to include other concession holders to offset nearly Rs. 33,000cr subsidy burden in annual passenger fares. Senior citizens can opt to give up 50% of subsidy; over 19L people gave up the concession, saving over Rs. 32cr between 22 Jul'17-31 Mar'18 for the railways. Here's more.
"We realized that in 2016 when we were telling people to give up their concession by 100%, many did not do. In 2017, when we gave them the option of giving up 50%, many came forward," a Railway Ministry official said. "This is completely voluntary and now we're preparing a campaign to encourage more such concession holders to come forward," the official said.
The Indian Railways extends passenger fare concessions to as many as 53 categories, which include passengers with disabilities, cancer, thalassemia, heart and kidney patients, war widows, students and others, incurring a loss of about Rs. 33,000 crore annually.
As part of its campaign to encourage people to give up subsidy, railways will send each senior citizen, who gave up subsidy, a personalized letter by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal. It is also setting up a website on which it will update the money saved in real-time and also data on senior citizens who gave up subsidies. The website will also carry their testimonials.
"Plans are afoot to send newsletters to these senior citizens, felicitation of some of them by the Minister, SMSes thanking them for their efforts, and a special token of appreciation for them by the train-crew during their train journeys," the official said, explaining the campaign.
Between Jul'17-Mar'18, over10 lakh senior citizens gave up 100% concession while over 9 lakh gave up 50% of the subsidy, resulting in a saving of more than Rs. 32.30cr. Since Aug'16, when senior citizens had the option to give up 100% subsidy, until Mar'18, 40 lakh of them have given up their subsidy, allowing the national transporter to save around Rs 77 crore.
