New fares came into effect from 22-Jan-2013 and the journey to Kerala that I make today would be the first one with the new fares. Instead of the Rs.316 (+10 for Netbooking) that I have been paying for years, I will now have to shell out Rs.365 (+10) which is a 15% increase. The suburban train fares also have been increased and instead of the Rs4 I used to pay for a Nungambakkam - Park ticket, it is now Rs5. Fair enough.
However, it was hilarious to see the front page of the newspaper, the day after the hike was announced.
It was hilarious to see the Tamilnadu CM (Ms.Jayalalitha) protesting the hike saying it is not fair. More so because after having come to power in the state a year or so ago, she had herself raised the prices of anything that was in state control - be it milk or electricity or bus fares. So now to crib about hike in rail fares that have remained stagnant for almost a decade would be illogical. Ofcourse again she did not have much of a choice in those decisions since allround inflation meant that production costs went up and the only way to stay afloat would be to hike prices.
I would not mind paying double or even more, if they could do something about speeding up the trains. Currently the 800kms takes me 13 hours to cover. The Shinkansen (Bullet train) that we took in Japan to visit a customer covered the same distance in 3 odd hours. OK, I am not asking that kind of speed. But atleast if they could do the distance in 7-8 hours it would have been great. If so, the train could leave Chennai at 11PM or so and reach my place by 6 in the morning. Same for the return leg. This would give me enough time to wind up work on Fridays, get on the train, have a nice sleep and be able to spend the 2 full days of the weekend with fmaily. Ah, if wishes were horses, software engineers would fly !!!
