To develop passenger amenities at railway stations with high footfall, Indian Railways has (IR) plans to levy a station development fee (SDF) from passengers who board/alight at such stations.
According to a Railway Board communication to zonal railways dated December 31,2021, this fee shall be collected from passengers purchasing tickets.
The list of stations that are be developed /redeveloped is yet to be drawn. Railway Board has asked station development units of zonal railways to draw up a list of stations to be developed/redeveloped under their jurisdiction and inform the commercial units about the specific date from SDF shall be levied in those stations . The commercial units are then required is date has factor in the advance reservation period (ARP) of 120days.
In case this date is less than the ARP, those passengers who have already booked their tickets prior to the levy of SDF will not be charged, IR clarified.
Basis of SDF
SDF will be based on the class of travel and will be charged as follows:-
* passengers buying suburban single journey fare and season tickets (suburban and non-suburban) will not be charged any SDF.
* Passengers buying unreserved second class and first class tickets in non -suburban besides those travelling in AC DEMU/MEMU will have to pay an SDF of Rs 10.
* All reserved non-suburban passengers travelling in non-AC class (2nd class, sleeper class -ordinary, sleeper class -mail/express and first class) will be charged Rs 25 as SDF
*All reserved passengers travelling in air-conditioned coaches ( AC chair car, AC 3 tier, 3AC-economy,AC 2-tier,AC-1st,Executive Class (EC), Executive Anubhuti (EA) and AC vistadome) will have to pay Rs Rs 50 as SDF.
* Those buying platform tickets will be charged Rs 10 over and above the applicable platform ticket rate for that station.
Other details are as follows:-
For alighting passengers, SDF will be 50 per cent of the above rates while for those who board and alight at such stations, SDF will be 1.5 times the SDF.
SDF shall be uniformly charged across all stations being developed / redeveloped with applicable GST levied on SDF as per extant rules.
SDF will be charged as a separate component in a ticket as SDF over and above the fare and other applicable charges.
SDF will be levied on a per passenger basis -that is on each and every passenger irrespective of whether the person has availed of any concession or not including warrants/vouchers.
SDF per passenger will be applied as per class of travel in case of journey by more than one class/ more than one train or break of journey. The same principle will apply for special trains booked on full tariff rate (FTR) or circular journey tickets.
In case of change of ticket to higher class,any difference in SDF will be recovered while any difference in SDF will be refunded in case the passenger is made to travel in a lower class.
For extension of journey, fresh SDF will be levied on the extended portion of journey as per extant rules.
In case of ticket cancellation, full refund of SDF plus GST will be done.
SDF will be levied on tickets where boarding point is changed after ticket is booked in case SDF is applicable to/from the new boarding point.
For tickets booked between two stations A and B with boarding point as C, SDF will be applicable as per boarding station C.
SDF will not be charged for Privilege pass/Privilege ticket orders(PTO), Duty pass/ Complimentary pass and the like as there is no concept of refund in these instruments.
