Bandra Garib-Rath - नाम से गरीब, लेकिन मेरे दिल के करीब - Abdul Rehman

Concession provided to elders is justified on the ground that
(1) they are physically weak, often suffering from (common old age) disease(s) and often dependent on others for some day to day activities
(2) are not supposed to earn today, they might have had earned throughout their life, some of them have paid taxes to Govt too. (probably not much relevant in India).
(3)...
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they now survive on their (usually meagre) savings or are (often painfully) dependent on their children.
(4) concession will facilitate their travel by way of lower burden on them or lowering their dependency on their kin.
Elders are already getting lower berth on priority; there is nothing new in it.
Putting such ridiculous condition (staying in a coach other than their escorts), which is bound to put the elders and their escorts to extreme inconvenience, is a shrewd thinking. It is painful reminiscent of British Raj (Govt BY the British, FOR the British, OVER the Indians), where rules/ policies read out something else and intended something else.
It is better to straightforwardly reduce the subsidy from present level (50%) to suitably lower level, so that the quantum of additional revenue desired by IR, can be generated from the tickets sold to the elders, rather than putting such illogical conditions.
If financial condition is very bad, IR have full moral right to reduce its subsidy burden in a logical & justified way, like reducing the maximum % of concession to lower levels, eliminating concessions in higher classes, asking State Govts/ Central Govt to bear the burden etc.
Rebates and surcharges should not go together. If flexi fares are being introduced on one hand, reduction in quantum of concession given should also go hand in hand. Rebates on higher classes may be abolished. So called “poors” travelling in ac classes after paying meager & highly concessional fares, are insults to the real poor who travel in lower non ac classes after paying full/ surge fare.