MP Tejasvi Surya flags 'mathematical errors' in Bengaluru metro fare hike; urges to revise inflated fares

BENGALURU: In the wake of public outcry over the Metro fare hike based on alleged miscalculations, Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya has written to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) seeking urgent rectification of what he termed as glaring mathematical errors in the fare revision. Commenting on the mistakes committed by BMRCL, the MP said, Even high school students do better mathematical calculations than what BMRCL did for fare revision. He pointed out the difference between the actual fare hike and the Fare Fixation Committees (FFC) recommendation, stating, BMRCL has implemented an illogical fare increase of 105%, which is not in consonance with the FFC recommendation. The actual fare increase is around 50-55% with correct application of the formula given by FFC itself. Highlighting a particular instance of miscalculation, Surya said, The maintenance and administration cost was shown to have increased by a staggering 366%, whereas the actual increase should be around 118.5%. He said this error likely occurred due to an incorrect base-year calculation, where BMRCL deviated from the formula used in the report and adopted a value alien to the available data. As a result, the percentage increase in maintenance and administration costs, which should have been 23.7%, was incorrectly computed as 73.16%, thereby inflating the overall fare hike to an illogical 105.15%. Surya said the Fare Fixation Committee, instead of re-examining BMRCLs submission, merely noted that 105.15% was on the higher side and arbitrarily reduced it to 51.55% without providing any recorded reasoning. He also stressed that BMRCL implemented fares exceeding even the committees recommendations, resulting in hikes of up to 82% on certain frequently used routes. The MP urged BMRCL to revisit and correct the fare structure.