Kejriwal had raised the issue of increased fares with Union Minister Hardeep Puri during the launch of the Pink Line earlier last week. Kejriwal had raised the issue of increased fares with Union Minister Hardeep Puri during the launch of the Pink Line earlier last week.

With reports suggesting a sharp drop in traffic on the Delhi Metro owing to recent fare hikes, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, on Wednesday, appealed to the Centre to avoid making it an ego issue and reduce the ticket prices. “If centre also agrees that metro fare hike was wrong, why not reverse it by setting up another fare fixation committee immediately. Let’s not make it an ego issue. It is affecting lakhs of commuters every day,” Kejriwal said responding to a tweet on the social media platform.

The Indian Express had reported that the average daily ridership in the months following the fare hike has dropped by up to 15 per cent as opposed to the previous months, according to the Delhi government data. In the months of October 2017, November 2017, December 2017 and January 2018, an average of 24.2, 24.5 lakh, 22.97 lakh and 23.23 lakh people commuted daily on Yellow Line, Blue Line, Red Line, Green Line and Violet Line collectively. In February, the figure improved marginally to 24.06 lakh. During the first two weeks of March, the average daily ridership has been 20.11 lakh.

If centre also agrees that metro fare hike was wrong, why not reverse it by setting up another fare fixation committee immediately. Lets not make it an ego issue. It is affecting lakhs of commuters every day. https://t.co/5j6RGtnoks — Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) March 21, 2018

Read | Fare hike likely to have pushed Metro ridership to 4-year low, shows data

Kejriwal had raised the issue of increased fares with Union Minister Hardeep Puri during the launch of the Pink Line earlier last week. Puri, however, said the Centre cannot do anything about it and that there can be no roll-back.

“I want to say that metro fare has been hiked a little too much. I am not blaming anyone for this. I am not finger-pointing at anyone… if we can work together, including the Delhi government, Centre and the metro, we can find a solution to it. Fare fixation committee had increased fares of metro, and I believe that fare fixation committee will set an example by reducing fares this time,” Kejriwal had said during the launch.

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