Passengers to pay charges for carrying ‘extra luggage’ in trains, says Vaishnaw

 

 

 

RAILWAY Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that passengers need to pay charges for carrying luggage beyond the prescribed free allowance limits while travelling by train. Vaishnaw was responding to questions raised by MP Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy who sought to know whether Railways would implement baggage regulations for train passengers on the lines of practice being followed at airports. “At present, class-wise maximum limit has been prescribed for carriage of luggage by the passenger along with him/her inside the compartments,” Vaishnaw said in a written reply, while providing class-wise free allowance and maximum limits in a tabular format. According to the information shared, a passenger travelling in Second Class is allowed to carry 35 kg of luggage free of cost and up to 70 kg on a chargeable basis. For Sleeper Class passengers, the free allowance is 40 kg with a maximum permissible limit of 80 kg.

 

Passengers travelling in AC 3 Tier or Chair Car are permitted a free allowance of 40 kg, which is also the maximum limit. First Class and AC 2 Tier passengers are permitted to carry 50 kg of luggage free of cost and up to 100 kg as the maximum limit. AC First Class passengers can carry 70 kg free of cost and up to 150 kg on a chargeable basis. “The maximum limit includes free allowance,” Vaishnaw said. He added, “Passengers are allowed to book and carry excess luggage beyond free allowance with him/her in the compartment up to the maximum limit as per class as tabulated above on payment of charges at 1.5 times of luggage rate.” According to Vaishnaw, trunks, suitcases and boxes having outside measurements of 100 cmx60cmx25 cm (lengthxbreadthxheight) are allowed to be carried in the passenger compartments as personal luggage. “If the trunks, suitcases and boxes whose outside measurement exceeds any one of the dimensions, such articles are required to be booked and carried in the brakevan (SLRs)/ parcel vans and not in the passengers’ compartments,” the Minister clarified.

 

He further said that merchandised items are not allowed for booking and carriage in the compartment as personal luggage. Kavach system covers 2,000-km rail network: RAILWAY Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday told the Lok Sabha that progress on the installation of the Kavach system was “very fast” and 2,000 km of the rail network had been brought under the system. Replying during the Question Hour in the Lok Sabha, he said the Kavach is a complex system which has five major systems within, including laying down of optical fibre cable (OFC) all along the tracks and installation of telecom towers.

 

The Indian Railways has completed laying 7,129 kilometres of OFC cables, installed 860 telecom towers, covered with data centres 767 stations, installed trackside equipment along 3,413 km, and installed 4,154 locomotives. “Apart from that, the complete commissioning of the system is today more than 2,000 kilometres. The progress is very fast,” he said. ‘Kavach’ is an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system. The Minister added that 40,000 technicians and operators have been trained because this is a “very” complex and totally new system. On a supplementary question asked by DMK’s Kalanidhi Veeraswamy on rail accidents, the Minister said compared to 2014, when the number of consequential accidents was 135, the Government has been able to “bring it down by 90 per cent to 11.”