The Delhi government is ready to pay half the amount that the Centre has asked for, to fund the city’s metro service, in order to stop an increase in fares, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday, IANS reported. The central government would have to pay the other half, he wrote to Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

Kejriwal was replying to Puri’s letter, in which he had asked the Delhi government to pay Rs 3,000 crore annually for five years if it insisted on blocking the next increase in Delhi Metro fares. Otherwise, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation will be “starved of finances”, leading to “deterioration of the quality of services it stands for”, Puri had said.

Kejriwal has earlier called the proposed increase in fares “anti-people” and had pledged to not let it happen. The metro service runs under an equal equity partnership between the Delhi government and the Centre.

In his response, the chief minister said: “Let an assessment be made of the financial gap likely to be created on account of the postponement of the second fare hike, and we will be able to bear half of it.” Since the central government bears 100% of loss for Kolkata Metro, I see no difficulty if it bears 50% in case of Delhi, Kejriwal said, adding that a “Fare Fixation Committee” can then be constituted, as earlier suggested.

Fares on the Capital’s metro transit system are due to be revised a second time this year from October 10. They were last revised in May. Before May, the structure was last revised in 2009.