Metro fare panel set up, govt to ask HC to stay hiked rates





State Wants Revision By Committee

Approval for the fare fixation committee (FFC) that will determine Metro tariff on the VersovaAndheri-Ghatkopar (VAG) corridor was pushed through on Saturday . The state government now plans to approach the Bombay high court to seek a stay on Friday's fare increase and to ask it to let the committee decide the tariff.

Retired Justice E Padmanabhan is chairman of the committee, and the two other members are former chief secretary Jayant Kumar Banthia and former law secretary T K Vishwanathan.

Chief Minister M Devendra Fadnavis, who was in New Delhi, tweeted: "Met Hon UD Minster Venkiahji.Today he constituted a committee under Retired Justice Padmanabh for fare fixation for Mumbai Metro."

Next he tweeted: "State government will bring this to the notice of Hon High Court and will request to stay their order and let the committee decide on tariff issue."

Despite the government acting with speed, there may not be an immediate decision on a rollback of the new, higher fares -Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 30 and Rs 40 introduced by Metro operator MMOPL after a favourable high court order -as the FFC will take some time to begin its work.

The Metro Act allows the MMOPL to fix and charge the initial fares, which is what it did on Friday after a few months of what was called promotional fares.

The earlier, promotional fares were Rs 9 to Rs 13, as favoured by the government.

Sources said that under the Metro Act, the committee will have to decide on fare fixation within three months of submission of an application for fare revision.

"The act is silent on who should make an application before the commission," an MMRDA official said.

The MMRDA, a government agency with 26% stake in MMOPL, is opposed to the new fares and instead wants slabs of Rs 9, Rs 12 and Rs 13. It argues that these rates were accepted by the consortium in the concession agreement.

"There are chances that both MMOPL and MMRDA, on behalf of the state government, may file a separate application," a source said. "It will then be left to the FFC to decide on the fare."

On Thursday , the high court directed the Centre to appoint the FFC before January 31 to discuss tariff for different stops on the corridor.