[Marxistindia] Withdraw Rail Fare Hike

[news from the cpi(m)]

September 8, 2016

 

Press Statement

 

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the
following statement:

 

Withdraw Rail Fare Hike

 

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly condemns the announcement of  'flexi
fares' announced by the Railway Ministry for Durunto, Shatabdi and Rajdhani
trains. This provides for an increase in fares upto 50 per cent over and
above the normal fares for 90 per cent of the seats. This scheme however,
excludes the highest class of travel i.e. AC I and Executive Chair
reflecting the pro-rich bias of the government.  This demand-driven scheme
is a mask to cover a sharp hike in fares for 90 per cent of the passengers.

 

The Indian Railways plays a very important role in unifying our country and
is a public service for the vast majority of our people. This cannot be
treated as a profit-making enterprise of the government. If this model were
to be made applicable to other public services like government hospitals,
fire brigade and the police who will respond on the basis of demand at a
given point of time, it would amount to a complete abdication of the
government in providing public services to the people. 

 

The CPI(M) would like to caution the people that this is a prelude to
extending 'flexi pricing' to other trains as well in the coming days. This
would in turn mean imposition of severe burdens on the vast majority of our
people who are already suffering from high inflation, low wages, growing
unemployment and other miseries. 

 

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) demands the immediate roll back of this
anti-people measure.

 

 

 

 

(Hari Singh Kang)

For Central Committee Office

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://cpim.org/pipermail/marxistindia_cpim.org/attachments/20160908/1b701425/attachment.html>