Bengaluru: Reduction in passenger fares is unlikely in the ensuing railway budget for 2015-16 despite sharp fall in diesel price, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu hinted Thursday.

"We recover only 50 percent of the passenger cost from the fares, in which there is already a huge element of subsidy, benefitting them (passengers)," Prabhu told reporters on the margins of a railway function here. Prabhu will present his maiden railway budget next month.