The railways plan to soon discontinue the current dynamic fare structure for the premium Suvidha trains, with air travel from Mumbai to Patna becoming cheaper than that by the Suvidha.

While a budget carrier’s air ticket from Mumbai to Patna will cost about Rs 7,000 on November 24, a Suvidha ticket will set a passenger back by Rs 9,395 on that day.

Dynamic fares are not being abandoned per se and will continue to apply to the Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duranto trains, with the Suvidha shifting to that structure.

The surge pricing of Suvidha tickets has come into focus with a large number of people rushing to catch the train to travel home for Chhath Puja.

Many have taken to the social media platform X to vent their anger at the exorbitant ticket prices.

“Rs 9300 for 2AC travel from CST Mumbai to Patna Junction. The Rs 5900 dynamic charges are so candid. Cost of SL Class Rs 2625…. Is this like, really a pro-people government?” a post on X said.

The base fare for the Mumbai-Patna Suvidha 2AC ticket is Rs 2,950 and the dynamic charges are Rs 5,900. With taxes and other charges, the total price comes to Rs 9,395 for a ride on November 24.

Last-minute booking on a budget airline would cost about Rs 18,000 on the Mumbai-Patna route. However, booked now for November 24, it would cost around Rs 7,000.

The Suvidha’s fare structure, introduced in 2015, is dynamic, meaning the ticket prices vary based on the booking rate and seat availability. It has five slabs, each accounting for 20 per cent of the total seats.

The first slab is the Rajdhani base fare plus a Tatkal charge. The fare rises by 1.5 times in the second slab and keeps increasing all the way up to the final slab, where it is capped at three times the base slab.

Officials did not give a deadline for when the Suvidha would shift to the dynamic fare structure of the Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duranto.

Under the Rajdhani’s dynamic pricing system, the base fare jumps by 10 per cent for every 10 per cent of seats booked, with a ceiling of a 50 per cent hike above the base fare.

The Suvidha is a fast train service that operates on the busiest routes and provides confirmed tickets. It has priority over Superfast, Mail and Express trains.

Chhath Puja is celebrated for four days after Diwali, mainly in Jharkhand, Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.

The number of special train trips this festive season will be more than two-and-a-half times last year’s, data provided by railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shows.

The railways are operating 6,754 additional train trips between October 1 and December 31 to clear the rush of passengers, compared with 2,614 during the same period last year, Vaishnaw said. Till now, 2,423 of these trips have been completed, he added.

Dynamic pricing is a strategy adopted by businesses to set flexible prices for their products depending on current market demands. The prices are based on factors such as the pricing of competitors and time-based pricing, among others.

The passenger fare is cross-subsidised by freight fare. In the budget for 2023-24, traffic revenue has been estimated at Rs 264,600 crore, making up 99.8 per cent of the total revenue.