Before Kejriwal, BJP’s Hardeep Puri too pitched Delhi Metro rebate for students. What are the hurdles

New Delhi: The Delhi Metro, the longest mass rapid transit system in India, became the centre of political debate ahead of the upcoming assembly elections after Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday, demanding a 50 percent concession for students on metro fares.

In a letter to PM Narendra Modi, Kejriwal said, “To reduce the financial burden on students, I propose a 50 percent concession to students on Delhi Metro.”

Kejriwal also said that the Delhi government was willing to share half the cost of the scheme with the central government.

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He also said that the Delhi government is in the process of coming up with a plan to make bus travel completely free for students.

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Women can already travel free of cost in Delhi’s public buses under an AAP government scheme launched in 2019.

At a press conference later, Kejriwal said, “I hope the PM will accept this request for the benefit of our children and youth.”

“After the elections, we will implement free bus travel for students and hopefully a 50 percent concession for students travelling by metro. This announcement is a step towards creating a more equitable and accessible education system in Delhi,” Kejriwal said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dismissed Kejriwal’s demand, calling it a political gimmick.

“If he was serious, he would have implemented this by now. Why send letters when elections have been announced? The fact that he is indulging in all this now means it is a political gimmick,” said Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor.

The Delhi Metro, which carries between 30 to 35 lakh commuters on average every day and spans 395 km, including stretches in Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Faridabad, is a joint venture between the Centre and Delhi government.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) earns between Rs 10 crore to Rs 12 crore daily from ridership. Its other major sources of income include advertisements, property development, renting out station premises to commercial establishments, such as food kiosks, and consultancy for other metro projects. In total, it earned Rs 6,645 crore in 2022-23, the last available data.

Also Read: Not enough commuters? Metros have less than 50% projected ridership, says IIT-D report

Concessions for students proposed before

Such subsidies have been recommended before, becoming the subject of political contests.

In 2018, when the Centre was addressing the political fallout from a metro fare hike that had taken effect the previous year, Union minister and BJP leader Hardeep Singh Puri first proposed the idea of concessions for students and senior citizens.

This hike had led to a dip in ridership, prompting the Delhi government to demand its withdrawal.

Puri had in March 2018 said that he had directed the then DMRC Managing Director Mangu Singh to work out a mechanism to offer some special fares to students and senior citizens to offset the burden of the fare hike on them.

At the time, DMRC explored the feasibility of offering discounted fares. In April 2018, the then DMRC MD Mangu Singh said that the DMRC, based on Puri’s directions, was exploring the option of preparing a biometric identification system to roll out the proposed concessions.

In the absence of such a tech-enabled system, he said, such rebates cannot be offered as the existing system cannot differentiate among various categories of commuters.

By 2019, a solution was reportedly found, with Puri saying that a technology-based approach would soon be ready to provide relief to students and senior citizens in need.

“We are ready with technology-based solutions to provide relief to students and senior citizens travelling on metro trains. The central government will implement it appropriately,” he told PTI in an interview.

Since then, there has been no information on the plan or its progress.

Free rides for women

In 2020, ahead of the Assembly elections, the AAP government proposed free metro rides for women but it was not implemented after the DMRC and the Centre argued that fares could only be determined by the Fare Fixation Committee (FFC)—a body established by the Union government.

The DMRC also highlighted that providing free rides to women would require an annual subsidy of Rs 1,566 crore.

“DMRC, therefore, will have serious financial risk in case this payment is stopped fully or partially at a future date. This is particularly very critical for survival of DMRC, as it has an obligation to pay back huge debt, approx 32,000 crore.”

“Therefore, before implementing the scheme, DMRC will like a firm and reliable arrangement of regular cash flow,” the DMRC had written to the Delhi government at the time.

The current metro fare structure was set by the 4th FFC in 2016, with fares ranging from Rs 10 for journeys up to 2 km to Rs 60 for journeys beyond 32 km.

The FFC’s recommendations are binding under the Delhi Metro Railway (Operation and Maintenance) Act, 2002, though one of the committee’s suggestions—that there should be an automatic annual fare revision based on factors such as staff costs, maintenance, energy, and the Consumer Price Index—remains unimplemented due to the politically sensitive nature of fare hikes.

(Edited by Sanya Mathur)

Also Read: Delhi poll won’t be Modi vs Kejriwal, one believes in good governance, other in disruption—Hardeep Puri

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