The Southern Railway on Sunday said that ₹20 is being charged extra per passenger for packaged drinking water and newspaper in some long-distance trains.
The clarification comes in the wake of passengers complaining in social media about extra charges being collected by ticket checking staff in some long-distance trains like Tejas.
In a press release, the Southern Railway said as per the Railway Board policy and in return for provision of packaged drinking water and newspaper, the ticket checking staff had been instructed to collect excess fare from passengers who had booked their tickets prior to December 16.
The cooked meal services were suspended in premium trains, including Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto, and Tejas. Now that the cooked meal services had been reintroduced from December 17, extra charges were collected from passengers who had opted out of the catering services. The Southern Railway had suspended catering services in these trains in view of the COVID pandemic.
