New Delhi: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has once again written to Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri, seeking a review of the hike in Metro fares and reiterated his offer to partially bear the cost of the proposed “claw back”.

Mr Puri, however, said that neither the Centre nor the Delhi government has powers to rollback the fares fixed by the fixation committee headed by a retired judge and claimed that the ridership on three different days in October this year were higher than the last year.

Hitting back, the Union minister said that the 35 per cent fall in the DTC riders and shortfall of buses called for an urgent attention.

In his letter to Union minister, the chief minister said there has been a decline of about 10.5 per cent in the number of passenger trips undertaken during November 2017, compared to last year.

“Past data as well as the claims made by the DMRC indicate that passenger trips grow by about 8.5-9 per cent every year. Even if we assume a conservative growth rate of 8 per cent per annum, it would be evident that not only was this growth of 8 per cent missed, there was also a decline of 10.5 per cent as mentioned above, implying a total loss of 18.5 per cent in passenger trips,” he said.

It implies that there was a shift of 15.3 lakh passenger trip from the Delhi Metro in November 2017 alone, which suggests these trips were undertaken by other modes that are less friendly to the environment, he said in letter to Puri. “I reiterate our earlier offer to bear half the losses arising out of the proposed rollback,” he added.

Later, Mr Puri, who is minister of state for housing and urban affairs, claimed the dip in the ridership cannot be linked to the fare hike effected in October, which, it said, was necessary for maintaining “efficiency”.