Commuters taking special ‘last trains’ along Kolkata Metro Rail’s busiest north-south corridor (or Blue Line) will have to pay an additional charge of Rs 10 from Wednesday (1 January 2025). It won’t. Kolkata Metro Railway made the announcement on Tuesday.
This additional charge is due to low ridership, which is insufficient to offset some of the costs of running the additional trains.
Metro has always been reluctant to run late-night services beyond the 9.40pm deadline, except on special occasions such as pujas and day-night cricket matches at Eden Gardens. In May 2024, after hearing a public interest litigation, the Calcutta High Court asked the metro authorities to consider implementing late-night services. Metro has responded accordingly and from May 24, two trains will run from New Garia and Dumdum at 11pm.
“There were very few passengers. On most days, there were fewer than 10 passengers on each train. From June 24, we moved the last train to 10:40 p.m. Still, there were very few passengers. Passenger fares are heavily subsidized” Metro Rail, Kolkata As a result, it is operating at a large deficit.
After all, Metro Rail doesn’t carry freight, so its revenue stream is limited. In the end, it was decided to impose a surcharge of 10 rupees on last train users. This was supposed to come into force from December but was postponed due to various reasons,” said a senior metro official.
One reason for this was opposition from various groups, including the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), and there was even a threat of unrest if a surcharge were imposed. Metro countered that running a pair of trains costs more than Rs 70,000 crore, and unless there is adequate ridership, losses will only increase.
“Being a government agency, if a large number of passengers were benefiting from the service, we would not have cared about the loss. That is not the case. “Therefore, it has been decided to impose additional charges, which will come into effect from January 1, 2025,” the official added.
