Skip to main content

Surge Pricing By Indian Railways

At a time when the society is discouraging surge pricing by taxi operators, the Indian Railways  has shocked one and all by asserting its monoplistic structure. 

It has introduced surge pricing, on so called premium trains even though they are actually overpriced shoddy trains which are preferred by people mostly due to the alternates. The last time I travelled in a Shatabadi, the window in the toilet was absent. Instead they had fixed a paper carton like the ones we use for packaging to fill in the gap. The alternate trains are more shoddy have a poor time table and very badly managed. In most of such trains the tickets are not even checked properly. Thus allowing more indiscipline and chaos. So, by the reason of railways, since it is a monopoly why not loot people in the name of surge pricing? And what better time than the festive season when people are going home to bring this measure in?

The central government was expected to bring in effeciency to railways to cut down expenses. Also remove corruption and punish those indulging in wrong practices. Instead it has resorted to grandstanding and to increase prices to cover for the sloth in the railways. 

Comments

Also read

Toddy to Tequila Review: How Does Alcohol Tell the Story of India?

What if the history of India could be read through a glass? In Toddy to Tequila , Sandhya Mulchandani turns alcohol into an unexpected historical guide, moving from Vedic rituals and indigenous brews to Mughal courts, colonial trade and modern distilleries. Her subject is never simply drinking. It is faith, pleasure, prohibition, commerce, class, power and the people caught between them. Have you ever wondered what your drink says about the country you live in? Perhaps you are sitting somewhere with a drink in front of you. Nothing dramatic. No Mughal durbar. No colonial club with men in linen suits pretending the weather is not trying to kill them. You might be holding whisky. Or feni. Or beer. Perhaps a cocktail with a name that requires three attempts before you can pronounce it without embarrassing yourself. Perhaps it is toddy, poured from a humble container that has travelled a very long distance from the fashionable cocktail menus of modern India. Now ask yourself a sligh...

Did You Ever Love Me? Book Review: Can Rithvik singh turn heartbreak into a homecoming?

Did You Ever Love Me? by Rithvik Singh is a tender contemporary poetry collection about love, heartbreak, longing, self worth and learning to let go. Its greatest strength is emotional accessibility: Singh writes directly to readers who feel intensely and care deeply. The collection offers comfort without pretending heartbreak is simple, though its simplicity may occasionally feel familiar to seasoned poetry readers. Did you Ever Love Me? Have you ever loved someone so completely that, after they left, you were left wondering whether they had ever understood what they had been given? Not merely whether they loved you, but whether they ever noticed how much you loved them, how much patience you offered, how many small things you remembered, or how often you chose to stay when leaving might have been easier. There is a particular loneliness in that question because it rarely arrives at a dramatic moment. More often, it finds you while you are doing something completely ordinary. Yo...

Does India need communal parties?

I think, it was Tan's post on this blog itself, Republic Day Event, where this question was raised. My answer. YES. we need communal parties even in Independent, Secular India. Now let me take you, back to events before 1947. When India was a colony of the British Empire. The congress party, in its attempt to gain momentum for the independence movement, heavily used Hinduism, an example of which is the famous Ganesh Utsav held in Mumbai every year. Who complains? No one. But at that time, due to various policies of the congress, Muslims started feeling alienated. Jinnah, in these times, got stubborn over the need of Pakistan and he did find a lot of supporters. Congress, up till late 1940's never got bothered by it. And why should we? Who complains? No one. But there were repercussions. The way people were butchered and slaughtered during that brief time when India got partitioned, was even worse than a civil war scenario. All in the name of religion. And there indeed was cr...