With effect from June 20, second class season passes would cost more by Rs 5-15. Monthly season ticket fares have been increased by Rs five for journeys up to 50 km, by Rs 10 for distances between 51 km and 100 km and by Rs 15 for distances beyond. Second class ordinary tickets have been increased by Rs 1 to Rs 5. There has been no mention of first-class fares in the budget. The railways propose to mop up Rs 450 crore during the remaining part of the financial year.

``It was expected. The budget always taxes the working classes,'' says Amita Kutumbe, who spends over two and a half hours commuting between Goregaon and Nariman Point. A voter from railway minister Ram Naik's constituency, she fervently hopes he will implement his promise of 12-coach rakes.

``It's the same story every year, what else canone expect but a fare hike?'' sighed J P Tawle, an MTNL employee from Andheri.

M V Joshi, President of the Goregaon Pravasi Sangh, feels this hike shouldn't have happened. ``The city's rail system are anyway the country's biggest profit earners,'' he said protesting the hike.

The average commuter who expected the world out of the budget in terms of new facilities was disappointed. Mumbai's profit earning suburban sector found only brief mention in the budget, clubbed with white elephants like the Chennai and Calcutta metros.

Other passenger organisations wondered why Mumbai's commuters were being made to pay four times more than commuters in Chennai and Calcutta.

President of the Bombay Commuters Council S V Shidore said that the proposal to increase prices of monthly season tickets in Mumbai smacked of partiality. Calcutta's metro commuters were subjected to an increase of only three rupees and Chennai's commuters are paying only two rupees more, he noted.

In fact Minister of State for RailwaysRam Naik's whirlwind consultations with commuter groups in the city last month, may have even increased expectations on the budget. Most commuters felt Naik could well have spared Mumbai while commuter organisations felt miffed that amenities like a coupon system for Central Railways found no mention in the railway budget. The Passengers and Traffic Relief Association, one of the oldest commuter associations in the city, came down heavily on Naik for the increase.``After having fought for commuters for so many years, he betrayed them by increasing fares,'' said D K Kantharia. The association claimed that though the increase was a few rupees, it meant much more in terms of percentage.

Presenting the railway budget in the Union Parliament, Union Railway Minister Nitish Kumar justified the hike in fares. He told Members of Parliament that the increase for suburban commuters worked out to only 10 paise per journey. Since season ticket holders made, on an average, 50 journeys a month and approximately 80 percent of them travel up to 50 km, the increase in their case worked out to only 10 paise per journey.

Dipak Gandhi of Mumbai Suburban Rail Passengers' Association, said that commuters had been hit under the belt by the steep fare hike. Suburban commuters are paying fares at an average of 29 paise per km as against as only 7 paise charge to the longest slab passenger which is a piece of gross injustice of the rationalised rail fare pricing policy adopted by the government, he said.