From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Feb 9: Golden Chariot, the sole luxury train operated in India since 2008 by Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation (KSTDC) to promote Inbound Tourism in South India, is likely to double the frequency of its trips from the present 10 per year with the Railway Board accepting Karnataka’s demand for an attractive revenue sharing model.

Under the new revenue sharing model of 56:44 between Indian Railways and KSTDC approved by the Railway Board,  Karnataka’s IT/BT and Tourism Minister Priyank Kharge said the KSTDC would make all out efforts to attract more tourists and foreigners by adopting dynamic and more affordable tariff which will lead to higher occupancy for the train.

He also said that Government of Karnataka and KSTDC would be making all out efforts to market and publicize The Golden Chariot- Internationally as well as at Domestic sector. 

“We would target to achieve at least 50% occupancy in the coming 2 years besides increasing the number of tours from about 10 in a year to more than 20 trips in a year,’’ he said pointing out that the KSTDC was able to operate hardly 10 trips per year since inception in 2008.

He said: “We would also consider short duration trips, mainly weekend tours, to encourage domestic tourists and give them the experience of luxury train journey with well curated tours to various destinations like Hampi, Badami and Mysuru.’’

Kharge said the new revenue sharing model approved by the Railway Board after several representations helps in promoting Golden Chariot, thus, supporting promotion of tourism in general and Luxury Train in particular. 

The minister welcomed the initiative taken by Railway Board and expressed happiness and also said that Revenue Share policy shall help us in getting more tourists and foreigners by adopting dynamic and more affordable tariff which will lead to higher occupancy for the train. 

The Golden Chariot is a joint venture of Government of Karnataka, Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Tourism. The project of operating the Luxury train was envisaged in the year 2002 by signing an MOU between KSTDC and Indian Railways. 

The MOU had a provision of Revenue Share between KSTDC and Railways for the initial 5 years but unfortunately, the Railways imposed very high Haulage charges on Golden Chariot from the very first run in 2008. Since then, KSTDC has been paying all the fixed haulage charges and variable haulage charges to Indian railways. 

As a result of high Haulage charges imposed on KSTDC for operating Golden Chariot, the project had not been doing well since the inception. The tariff was also kept very high due to the high operational cost and the occupancy over last 10 years has been almost 30-35% only. 

Karnataka has been making repeated requests to Ministry of Railways to adopt the Revenue Share policy and Kharge had recently met the Chairman, Railway Board and requested to either adopt the Revenue share policy or reduce the haulage charges drastically.