hemen
parekh
Marol
, Mumbai , India
(
M ) +91 - 98,67,55,08,08
Irrefutable Law
of Economics
Indian Express ( 08 Sept 2016 )
carries following news report :
" Railways to introduce
surge pricing for Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto trains "
"
The Ministry of Railway on Wednesday said that it will introduce flexi fare pricing in its Rajdhani, Duronto
and Shatabdi trains from September 9.
The
fares will increase by 10 per cent with every
10 per cent of berths sold.
“The base fares will increase by 10 per cent with every 10 per
cent of berths sold subject to a prescribed ceiling limit. There will be no
change in the existing fare for 1AC and EC class of travel,” a railway ministry
release said.
While 10 per cent of the seats will be sold in the normal fare
in the beginning, it will go on increasing
by 10 per cent with every 10 per cent of berths sold with the ceiling limit at maximum 50 per cent depending upon the demand "
Now
even as some State Governments ( and
possibly central Transport Ministry ) ,
are seriously considering forcing Uber / Ola
taxi-share operators to give up their practice of Surge
Pricing , Shri Suresh Prabhu ( Railway Minister ) must find lakhs of
crores of rupees to modernize our ancient and dilapidated train services
Over
the decades , one after another Railway Minister ensured that the railway passengers
did not have to pay for the actual / real cost of running these trains
They
took the easy way out by keeping Rail Fares much below the cost , by incurring losses , subsidized by tax payer money !
But Shri
Prabhu says :
"
This cannot go on for ever ! People must pay the true cost of this service !
Aren't people paying varying prices for Petrol
/ Diesel for some years now ? At one time , these too were highly
subsidized and if govt tried to raise these ( mostly thru annual budget ) ,
there used to be riots on the streets !
Now these get adjusted every fortnight
and no one even notices !
Economic law of Demand and Supply must
dictate the prices , from time to time "
No doubt , Shri Prabhu !
But under
this very Law , when existing operators start making tons of profit, dozens of competitors enter that field and increase the
" Supply " to catch up with
the huge " Demand "
In
turn , that increased competition forces
the incumbents to drop their prices to match the new operators and the
Consumers gain
Precisely
, what is happening for the past few weeks in the Mobile
Telephony Services , with arrival of Reliance
Jio !
But the question is :
Will NDA
government permit private sector
companies to lay down rail tracks and compete
with Indian Railways ?
If so
, that would be GREAT , because Indian Train passengers will have " Options " to choose from !
You
must not say , " Heads I win , Tails You Lose
" !
Incidentally
, in order to increase " Supply
" , here is what the Central Transport Ministry and the State
Governments
should do by :
#
Encouraging Kali-Pili taxi owners to
form their own Mobile App based " Share
Taxi " scheme to take on Uber /
Ola , playing by their " rules " , by installing Digi-Met / Fare-Calc
, as recommended in my blog,
#
Enabling many more private sector Start Ups
to launch, " Share-Bike " /
" Share-Rickshaw " operations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
08
Sept 2016
www.hemenparekh.in / blogs
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