New Delhi, Oct 10: Delhi Metro on Tuesday hiked its fares despite opposition from the Delhi government, eliciting mostly negative responses from commuters.
Barring the minimum fare of Rs 10 for a distance of 0-2 km, which will remain the same, fares have risen from Tuesday for long distance travel.
This is the second fare hike by Delhi Metro this year.
“The hike is not fair at all. Who will be happy with such a steep rise, that too twice in a year,” Ajay, a 40-year-old finance sector employee who commutes from Paschim Vihar to Rajiv Chowk, told IANS.
“It has almost doubled. Till yesterday I was charged Rs 27, today I had to shell out Rs 40 for the same distance,” he said.
Arvind Tripathi, 28, who works for a Japanese firm, said: “I paid Rs 60 today from Bata Chowk to Rajiv Chowk. This is not a good thing. Metro may be incurring losses but who isn’t?”
A salesman working in Rajiv Chowk said he would not mind the fare increase so much if only his income had risen correspondingly. “Let the government increase our income too.”
AAP to start ‘Metro Fare Satyagraha’ from Wednesday
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday said it will launch a ‘Metro Fare Satyagraha’ from Wednesday against the hike in Delhi metro fares.
The fares were increased from Tuesday despite strong opposition from the AAP-led Delhi government which had locked horns with the Delhi Metro Rail Corp (DMRC) over the hike — the second this year.
Delhi AAP convenor Gopal Rai said the fare hike will benefit only the cab aggregators, like Ola and Uber, whose services will become cheaper than metro.
AAP volunteers will launch the agitation at all city metro stations at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Rai added.
It will continue on Thursday and on Friday at 12 noon when the party workers will lay siege to Union Urban Development Ministry housed in Nirman Bhavan here.
On Monday, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had also called the fare hike a “conspiracy” to benefit cab aggregators. In a discussion in the Assembly on Wednesday, AAP legislators voiced the same concern.
(IANS)
