Some time back, railways offered 50% discount to female passengers and 40% to male passengers across all classes. This is not going to remain the same,hindustantimes.com reports.

It adds that the minimum age for availing this was 58 years for women and 60 years for men.

The same report states that the ministry of railways, which did away with concessions for senior citizens in March 2020, will not be restoring them yet, in an attempt to shore up finances — a move that is likely to be unpopular with tens of thousands of older passengers who benefited from the discount before the pandemic.

Ashwani Vaishnaw stated on Wednesday in a written reply to a question in Parliament. Previously, railways offered 50% discount to female passengers and 40% to male passengers across all classes. The minimum age for availing this was 58 years for women and 60 years for men. The cost of the discount worked out to ₹1,600 crores a year, 80% of the ₹2,000 crore railways incurred on all concessions.

During the pandemic, and as it restored services gradually, MoR discontinued all but 15 of the 53 concessions it offered — four for the differently-abled, and 11 for students and patients. Shree Prakash, former Member Traffic of Railways said, “The decision of railways to not restore senior citizens’ concessions is a retrograde step. Financially this step may help the ministry in a small manner, but overall, this decision will affect the volume of passenger travel, which is already affected, by train.”