Slamming the railway authorities for increasing fares, the pilgrims claimed that the Railways is actually extorting money by increasing the ticket fare to Rs 2000 and above.
Lawrence Fernandes, a resident of Mandrem, said that he was shocked to note that the minimum fare for Suvidha train was fixed at the tatkal fare for sleeper as well as A/C class and there was an increase in the booking charges. Thus, he said, he was forced to book a reserved seat with higher fare which came up to Rs 2100 per person, though the minimum fare for sleeper class was Rs 600.
“In Name of Suvidha train, the railway authorities have been trying to extort money from the pilgrims visiting Velankanni. This is for the first time we have been facing such bizarre situation. They would have made it as a special train to Velankanni and not Suvidha which has its own format of charges increasing fare with every 20 percent seats or berths being booked,” Fernandes said.
Duart D’Souza, another pilgrim, also from Mandrem, said, “I was not aware that we need to shell out such high amount to book a ticket in special Suvidha train. Today, we pay only Rs 1000 for a flight ticket to Bangalore, but I had to pay Rs 2200 per ticket to Velankanni. Railways should have excluded pilgrims from such fares,” he said.
Herald team met many other pilgrims who had their seats reserved in the special train to Velankanni, and everyone had same complaints. They also demanded that the state government should come forward to the rescue of pilgrims as with such increase in fare, the railway authorities have been trying to stop the pilgrims to visit Velankanni.
Meanwhile, the first special train between Vasco-da-Gama and Velankanni in connection with the feast at Velankanni left Vasco railway station with over 1000 pilgrim’s on Saturday morning. Similarly, on September 7, another train will depart from Vasco and will reach Velankanni next day. On return direction, the train will leave on August 29, September 5 and September 8 and will reach Vasco, the next day.
