A relief news has come for the railway passengers of Chhattisgarh. Indian Railways will not charge extra fare from the passengers in the name of special train. According to Indian Railways, now extra fare will not be charged in the name of special in passenger, local and MEMU trains running through South East Central Railway. DRM of SECR Bilaspur Division presented an affidavit in the High Court and said that no special charge will be levied in passenger MEMU trains.
Now railway will not take special charge
The division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Kumar Sinha and Justice BD Guru of Chhattisgarh High Court heard the PIL in which the disorganized operation of trains since the Corona call and running special trains in place of passenger trains and delays were made an issue. The court says that the Railways will not charge extra fare in the name of special trains. Apart from this, they have also given information about starting regular operation of all passenger local MEMU trains from January 1, 2025.
All trains will be operational from 1 January
During the last hearing, advocate Ramakant Mishra from the railways had informed that all passenger trains have been ordered to run as normal trains. On this, the petitioner told the court that even now passenger, MEMU local trains are being run as special trains by putting zero number in front of them. Higher fare is being charged. On this, the division bench had asked the DRM to clarify the situation by submitting an affidavit.
DRM said in the affidavit- All trains will be operational from 1st January
On Tuesday, DRM submitted an affidavit stating that due to not being able to print this year’s time table, passenger and local trains are still being run as special trains. These will be run as normal trains from 1 January 2025. It was argued on behalf of the petitioner that this has nothing to do with the printing of the time table, because these trains can still be run as normal trains.
High Court said- now railways will not charge special surcharge
The High Court has mentioned the affidavit of DRM in its order. It has also ruled that now the railways are bound to run passenger MEMU local trains as regular trains from January 1. With this order, the fare of these trains will no longer be increased as a special surcharge.
Court gave instructions regarding operation of Korba MEMU local
The petitioner informed that the railway has cancelled the 08745 and 08746 MEMU local trains running between Raipur-Gevra Road- Raipur for the last 9 months. On this too, the High Court asked the railway to take instructions and start the operations. Along with this, the division bench of the High Court has dismissed the PIL. The court has given the petitioner the liberty to file the petition again if there is any public problem in the future.
Let us tell you that Bilaspur Railway Zone is one of the highest earning railway zones, despite this there is no end to the problems faced by the passengers here. Trains run late here and often dozens of trains are suddenly cancelled. At the same time, the routes of trains are constantly changed due to infrastructure construction work and other such issues. In such a situation, this decision of the Chhattisgarh High Court has brought relief to the common rail passengers.
