Tamil Nadu bus fare revision: Madras High Court gives four more weeks to government for final challenge
The Madras High Court on Monday (September 21, 2026) gave the Tamil Nadu government another four weeks to take up its call for revision of private and government bus fares, which were fixed at ₹0.58 per kilometer in 2018 and have not been revised since then.
Justice Hemant Chandangoudar adjourned the hearing of the 2025 writ petition filed by the Federation of Tamil Nadu Bus Operators Associations to 26 October 2026 so that the government could come up with a final decision after consulting all the stakeholders.
The court was told that an expert committee headed by the Commissioner for Transport and Road Safety has already submitted its report on the issue of the review of the high-level ride committee comprising the Home Secretary, Transport Minister and Finance Minister.
The private bus operators pointed out to the court that the fares in Tamil Nadu were last fixed in 2018 when a liter of diesel was sold at ₹67.50 and the prices have not been adjusted since then, though the price of diesel has risen to around ₹100 per liter over the years.
The court was also informed that the tariffs were fixed at ₹1.10 per km in Kerala in 2022, ₹1 per km in Karnataka in 2020, ₹1.02 per km in Andhra Pradesh in 2022, ₹0.83 per km in Telangana in 2019. Tamil cars had the lowest in 2019 in all the southern Tamil states.
In December 2024, the Tamil Nadu government constituted a high-level committee to consider the fare revision request and in 2025, steps were taken to hear the views of state transport undertakings, private bus operators, bus commuters and other stakeholders.
After hearing their views and studying the written submissions received from all of them, the expert panel submitted its report to the high-level committee on 19 February 2026. Since then, the government has regularly requested the court to extend the deadline for taking a final decision after studying the report in detail.
Published – 22 Sep 2026 05:25 IST