Air and Train Fares Are Skyrocketing for Mahakumbh. Center Warns of Price Inflation
Train and airfares witness a high price during Mahakumbh. The Aviation Minister holds a meeting with the major airliners to reduce prices by 50 percent. More flights and trains to be started to reduce rush.
Mahakumbh is one of India's most celebrated events, expecting 80 crore people worldwide. The crowd has called in for congestion and a longer queue, leading to higher wait times. Prayagraj is seeing huge crowds, and people traveling to Prayagraj are paying huge prices for travel tickets. Train fares have shit up while general class tickets are oversold. Trains to Prayagraj are seeing ticketless passengers occupying the seats of reserved passengers. Price hikes in trains have also become a common aspect.
Airfares have reached a new height where flights from to Prayagraj reached a whooping amount of 90,000 rupees, making it impossible for the middle class to afford air travel. This persisted for a longer time until DGCA and the center warned the airlines of high travel costs. Civil Aviation Mister also stressed airlines to make a 50 percent cut in the airfares to allow passengers to fly with ease.
The Government has held three meetings with the airline companies post which the decision was made. The new fares will come into effect from the 1st of February. Updates claim that the Government also took care of the profits of the airlines and the price deduction percentage was a unified decision keeping in mind the budget and profits of customers and airlines respectively.
In a meeting held earlier in January 2025, The government asked airlines to rationalize airfares however, no sanctioned amount or price was fixed. With the sudden rise in the fares to Prayagraj, many people are unable to visit the holy event. DGCA has also approved an addition of 81 more flights from different parts of the country for Prayagraj which will further reduce the flight costs significantly.
Mahakumbh started on February 13 and will end on February 26 and has already witnessed close to 200 million footfall, leading to a huge stampede. Windows of trains are being broken as doors to reserved trains such as Rajdhani and Duranto are kept closed. In other trains, passengers are occupying reserved seats as there are no tickets given to passengers.
In some trains, where the prices are dynamic, they have risen almost 10X higher. Considering Indian Railways, a Government-owned entity should minimize the prices and set a nominal price.
