BJP claims Union govt. has put metro fare hike on hold; BMRCL says no such direction

Amidst a political slugfest over who is responsible for the Namma Metro fare hike, at least two BJP leaders from the city on Saturday claimed that the Union government had intervened and put the proposed fare hike on hold at their behest. Tejasvi Surya, MP for Bengaluru South, and Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly R. Ashok claimed the revised fares will not come into effect from February 9, as was scheduled.

However, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) told The Hindu that they had received no such communication. “We can decide only when official communication comes to us. So far, we have not received any communication,” a senior BMRCL official said.

This has created confusion whether the new fares will come into effect from Monday or not. 

Mr. Surya and Mr. Ashok on Saturday claimed to have spoken to Union Minister of Power and Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar flagging the issue and that he had directed officials to put the implementation of the revised fares on hold.

Submit request

Mr. Surya claimed that Mr. Khattar assured a review of anomalies in the Fare Fixation Committee’s (FFC) recommendations and indicated that a fresh FFC could be considered if the State government submits a formal request. Soon after Mr. Surya’s claim, Mr. Ashok claimed in a post shared on X that he too had a chat with Mr. Khattar and the Minister had made similar assurances.

Both the leaders put the ball in the State government’s court. “It is now up to the State government to act in the interest of the people. The Congress government led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah must immediately abandon its rigid and insensitive approach and initiate the process of forming a new Fare Fixation Committee (FFC),” Mr. Ashok said. 

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had, in a statement issued on Friday, put the onus on the Union government to fix Namma Metro fares and the State was bound to implement the fares recommended by the FFC, an independent committee.

Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar claimed the State was not even consulted on fare revision. Contradictin this, Mr. Surya claimed it was based on letters from the State that the FFC was formed. Union Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy alleged that the State government was trying to mislead people and the Centre’s share in BMRCL was only 20%.

Automatic fare revision

The BMRCL had, on Thursday, announced a zone-wise fare revision under its Annual Automatic Fare Revision mechanism, with the revised fares scheduled to take effect from February 9. The new structure involves a marginal increase of ₹1 to ₹5 across 10 fare zones, with fares recalibrated based on distance slabs across the Namma Metro network.

The announcement triggered strong backlash from commuters, as it came on the back of last year’s sharp fare hike. On February 9, 2025, BMRCL implemented a steep fare increase, with some slabs witnessing hikes of over 100%, leading to widespread protests across Bengaluru. Following public outrage, BMRCL later said the anomaly was due to technical issues in the fare calculation and capped the hike at 71% from February 14, 2025.

As commuter anger resurfaced after Thursday’s announcement, the issue soon turned into a political slugfest between the BJP and the Congress, with both sides trying to blame the other over the fare hike.