Passengers are groaning as the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) continues to charge double price for the Abuja-Kaduna train ticket despite ditching the social distancing policy started to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The service had introduced social distancing with empty seats between two passengers to avoid close contacts. Ticket fares were also increased by 100 percent to compensate for the empty seats.
This led to passengers paying N2600 and N5000 for the economy and executive cabins respectively as against N1300 and N2,500 before the pandemic.
However, the service has continued to charge the doubled fare even as every seat on the train is now occupied. But ticket fares have not been reviewed downward.
“This is not fare. The NRC should revert to the old price since the train is now running on full capacity,” a passenger Yakubu Haruna told Dateline Nigeria, adding that “they are ripping us off because they know the Kaduna-Abuja highway is very dangerous to ply.”
Commenting on twitter, a writer Sada Malumfashi asked the NRC and the Ministet of Transportation Chibuike Amaechi “if the price of the Abuja-Kaduna train officially doubled now, despite the train running on full capacity without social distancing?”
Neither the NRC nor the minister has responded to Malumfashi’s enquiry.
Officials of the NRC have also not responded to request for information from Dateline Nigeria.
However, there is indication that the Federal Government may not go back to the old fare.
Amaechi had while announcing the charges on the new Lagos-Ibadan rail standard gauge slated to begin operations January 2021, said the train ticket would cost between N3,000 to N6,000.
“We just transfer how we charged from Abuja to Kaduna. We charge N3,000 per Economy seat, N5,000 for Business class, and N6,000 for First class, the same is applicable to Lagos to Ibadan,” he had said without commenting on how the social distancing protocol led to the doubling of the ticket fares.
