The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) is cutting down on its number of trips on the Lagos-Ibadan train service route, as the country’s economic condition continues to worsen.
NRC Managing Director, Fidet Okhiria, made this disclosure in an interview with The Punch Newspaper on Tuesday, explaining that the corporation has reduced the number of trips on the route from six to two daily, to cushion the effect of the incessant hike in the pump prices of diesel.
Okhiria said: “The Lagos-Ibadan train service is running, but we have reduced the number of trips on that route because of the diesel problem. We reduced the number of trips we are running because of the hike in diesel price.
“We are now doing two return trips as against six, which by now should have gone to 10. So we run just two trips now due to the diesel problem.
“We just can’t increase it by ourselves. The government has to do that. We have made some recommendations. But even with the recommendations we made, the new price of diesel has overshot our workings as contained in the recommendations.
“However, we don’t want to price ourselves out of the market too, because the price of petrol is not increasing as such, rather the increase is little when compared to diesel price. And you know we are competing with transporters on roads”, he added.
The development comes as both private and public organisations continue to take drastic measures to survive the country’s increasingly harsh economic situation, which has been exacerbated by the increase in diesel pump prices and the incessant National grid failures.
The train service chief lamented that the trip reduction was the only way for the NRC to cope with the increase in diesel prices, claiming that it was beyond the NRC’s authority to raise train fares despite rising operating costs.
He did, however, state that the corporation had sent recommendations to the Federal Ministry of Transportation, for a train fare adjustment.
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