Traveling in rail is expensive: station development fee will have to be paid on booking train tickets, this will make travel costlier by Rs 50

Rail travel is going to be expensive soon. To book tickets in the train, you will have to pay up to Rs 50 more. The Ministry of Railways has decided to levy Station Development Fee (SDF) at newly developed railway stations. According to the Railways, this fee will be different for passengers from different classes. Suburban and season tickets have been kept out of this. This fee will be collected from the passengers boarding the train from that station and getting down at that station. However, for which stations and from when it will be applicable, the information has not been given yet.

Under this, for the railway stations which have been redeveloped or are to be redeveloped in future, a charge ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 50 will be charged from the passengers. Passengers will be charged SDF both on boarding or deboarding from such stations and this will be added to the journey ticket, making the tickets costlier.

Unreserved passengers will have to pay Rs 10 fee
For unreserved passengers, this fee will be Rs 10. Similarly, it will be Rs 25 for reserved non-AC passengers, Rs 50 for reserved AC passengers. Not only this, those who buy platform tickets will also have to pay Rs 10 for this.

For disembarking passengers, this amount will be 50% of the above rates. If a passenger boarding from any such railway station and deboarding at such station itself, the SDF in that case would be 1.5 times of the applicable rate.

how much will the rent increase
Train fare will become expensive due to SDF i.e. user fee. For example, if a passenger goes from New Delhi to Mumbai then he will have to pay user fee for both the stations. But if a passenger books a ticket from small stations to New Delhi or Mumbai, then he will have to pay only 50% of the normal charge as user fee. According to sources, initially this system can be started in 50 stations.

Railways working on redevelopment of stations
Railways is working on a plan to redevelop several stations. For the facilities available at these stations, passengers will have to pay a separate fee like the User Development Fee (SDF) levied at the airports.