**Railway’s garib rath to cost 50% less than AC-III tier**

Posted: Thursday, Oct 05, 2006 at 0000 hrs IST
Updated: Thursday, Oct 05, 2006 at 0000 hrs IST

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New Delhi, Oct 4: After giving low-cost air carriers a run for their money, the railways has now launched garib rath with fares 50% lower than AC-III tier fares. Railway minister Lalu Prasad has flagged off the first Garib Rath from Saharsa to Amritsar on Wednesday.

A ministry official said the 1,500 km journey would cost the passenger only Rs 695 as against Rs 1,164 —the fare for normal AC-III tier ticket. In chair cars, the cost would be Rs 595. He added that any extra service would be charged. Passengers will have to pay for bedrolls as well as food.

A serious flaw in the plan, however, is that the journey will be completed in 26 hours. This means that while the passenger will have to shell out less money, he will still lose out on time as compared to air travel.

A more probable passenger for Garib Rath trains will be the seven lakh passengers who travel by sleeper class every day, who are surprisingly second on the railways priority list.

The next train to be flagged off in the series will be the garib rath train from Delhi to Mumbai and its ticket is tentatively priced at Rs 595 for sleeper class and Rs 495 for chair car.

“The ministry is also mulling starting a fifth Garib Rath from Delhi to Kolkata,” the official said.

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