Railway Minister Suresh
Prabhu on Thursday (26th of Feb) presenting the NM govt first Full
year railway budget left passenger fares untouched and also steered clear of
announcing any new trains. Instead he launched a slew of measures aimed at
making train travel easier, more comfortable and safer.
The Railway Budget will be a
apart of the several campaigns initiated by Mr. Narendra Modi like Swatchh Bharat,
Make in India and Digital India. It is not a document in isolation.
1. Cleanliness: Make Swatch rail Force
behind the Swatch Bharat initiative. The railway minister announced the creation of a separate department
for cleanliness. Professional agencies would be engaged and adequate training would be provided to the railway
staff; setting up waste-to-energy conversion plans. Build new toilets covering 650 additional stations and
replacing existing toilets with 17, 388 bio toilets. Bring out design for vacuum toilets in the
upcoming 6 months; Extend built-in dustbins for to non-AC coaches.
2. Be Linen: The National Institute of
Fashion technology or NIFT will design bed linen for railways. Online booking of disposable bed rolls will be made
available soon.
3. Helplines:
The government has set up two 24*7 helplines. Commuters would have to dial toll
free numbers 138 for travel related
queries and 182 for security related queries. Mobile applications to redress
railway related complaints to be
developed soon.
4. Ticketing:
You will be issued an unreserved ticket quickly. The minister announced Operation
Five Minutes for unreserved ticketing. This would be achieved by
providing multiple options for ticketing like hot buttons, coin
vending machines, single destination teller, multi-lingual portal, unreserved
tickets on smart phones
among other things. Also concessional e-tickets for differently abled persons,
unreserved tickets for smartphones;
automatic ticket vending machines with smart cards and currency options. Integrated ticketing system on the
lines of the railway cum road tickets.
5. Surveillance Cameras: For the safety of women
commuters, surveillance cameras would be installed on select routes and ladies compartments of
suburban railway lines
6. Mobile phone charging: All general class
compartments will have mobile phone charging points. The number of such points would increase in sleeper
class too.
7. Station Facilities: 200 more stations added to
ADARSH STATION Scheme. Wi-Fi zones to be extended to more stations, facility of self-operated lockers to be made
available at stations, online booking of wheel chair
on payment basis for senior citizens, patients and differently abled passengers
would be made possible through
ITCTC for select stations.
8. Increasing Train Speed: Speed of 9 railway
corridors to be increased from the existing 130 kmph to 160 and 200 kmph respectively so that
inter-metro journeys like Delhi-Kolkata and Delhi-Mumbai can be completed overnight.
9. Catering: e-catering in 108 trains
to be introduced from January 2016. Ordering food through IRCTC website at the time of booking the tickets;
setting up base kitchen in the specific divisions to be run by reputed agencies for serving quality food;
expansion of water vending machines in selected stations are among the other facilities declared.
10. Comfortable Travel: NID approached to design
user friendly ladders to climb the upper berths; more reservation for senior citizens to the lower berths; TTEs to be
instructed to help senior citizens, pregnant
women, and differently abled persons. Middle bay coaches to be reserved for
women and senior citizens;
Provision of Rs 120 crore for lifts and escalators (76% higher); Newly
manufactured coaches to be
Brailley enabled; building wider entrances for differently abled persons;
allocation for passenger
amenities up by 67%.
11. Financing cell in the
railway Board:
It will seek advices from experts in the railways field and helps in mobilising the resources to meet the budgetary
requirements.
12. Foreign Rail Technology
Cooperation Scheme: The
Scheme aims to achieve the higher quality service for the nation. This is being launched because Technology intensive
and complex projects like speed raising
and station redevelopment require lot of handholding by a specialized agency in
terms of preparatory work, exploring
technology options and managing bid processes.
13. Gandhi Circuit: It has been decided to
promote tourism in the country through Gandhi Circuit. Indian Railways will join this effort through
Incredible Rail for Incredible India. The Gandhi circuit will be set up by the Indian Railways Catering and
Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to mark the 100 years of the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South
Africa to India.
14. Kisan Yatra: It is a special travel
scheme for farmers to visit farming and marketing information centres.
Apart from the above, there
are other major highlights as well. They are discussed as follows:
Highlights
from Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu's Speech:
*****************************************************************
·
No
increase in passenger fares
·
SMS
alert to be introduced for train timings
·
To
introduce air-conditioned coaches for suburban trains
·
Wi-Fi
to be available at 400 railway stations
·
User
friendly ladders for upper berths
·
SMS
alert for arrival and depart
·
To
revamp station redevelopment policy completely
·
SMS
alerts for arrival and departure of trains
·
To
have bidding system for redevelopment of stations
·
To
develop 10 satellite railway stations this year
·
On-board
entertainment facility could be extended on Shatabdi trains
·
Mobile
charging stations will be introduced general class coaches
·
Wagon-making
scheme to be reviewed to make it easier for private investment
·
To
improve cleanliness & design of bed linen
·
All
India 24x7 grievances helpline 138 to start soon
·
7,000
more toilets to be replaced by Bio-Toilets, New toilets at 650 stations, more
vacuum toilets
·
Passenger
travelling unreserved can procure a ticket within 5 minutes
·
Mobile
application to address complaints of people is also being developed
·
Hand-held
devices for ticket checkers for moving towards paperless ticketing
·
Centrally
managed railway display network in over 2000 stations in next 2 years
·
We
are committed to provide rail connectivity to North Eastern states
·
CCTVs
to be introduced in select trains and suburban trains for women safety
·
Train
Protection Warning System, Train Collision Avoidance System
·
Tickets
can be booked 120 days in advance instead of 60 days
·
Plan
expenditure to go up to a record Rs 1.1 lakh crore in 2015-16 from Rs 66,000
crore in the previous year
·
Railways
plans to spend over Rs 8.5 lakh crore over five years
·
We
will introduce train sets saving 20% of journey time, similar to bullet trains
in design, and that can run on existing tracks
·
Feasibility
report of high speed train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad expected by mid-2015
·
The
speed passenger trains across nine corridors will be increased to 160-200 km
from 110 km
·
Railways
to go through transformation in five years; to increase track capacity by 10
per cent to 1.38 lakh km
·
To
monetize assets rather than sell them
·
To
set up full-fledged Railway University in FY16
·
Rs.2000
crore for Coastal Connectivity Program; Rs.2500 crore through BOT/Annuity route
·
6608
kms of track to be electrified
·
Projects
worth Rs 96,182 crore to expand capacity of 9,420 km rail lines
·
Drawing
up comprehensive policy to tap latent advertising potential
·
Revamp
of Railway staff quarters and RPF Barracks
·
Rs.2000
cr for Coastal Connectivity Program; Rs.2500 cr through BOT/Annuity route. 1000
MW Solar plant; 100DEMUs to dual fuel.
·
Setting
up ‘Kayakalp’ to help in Technology Up gradation: It is an
innovation council proposed to be setup. It will be set up for the purpose of
business re-engineering and introducing a spirit of innovation in Railways.
·
Decentralize,
deregulate and delegate to make freight business simpler
·
1,00,011
Cr. Planning Budget in 2015-16
·
Corporate
safety Plans, ISRO to be involved; 3438
level Xings to be eliminated, Rly expense increased by 2600%
·
MUTP-III
project for
Mumbai. (Mumbai urban Transport Project)
·
Malviya Chair
at IIT BHU for
Railway technology excellence: Varanasi This chair will help in the development
of new materials used in all assets of the Railways
·
Train
Protection Warning Systems and Anti colliding system to be developed by RDSO
·
Automatic
Freight Scheme to be launched in Pan India.
·
8.5
lakh crore rupees to be invested in the railways in the next 5 years
·
Operating
ratio proposed at 88.5%. Best ever in 9 years.
·
Increase
track length by 20 per cent and passenger carrying capacity from 21 to 30
million.
·
Facility
of self operated lockers at stations
Safety Apps: (Source: The Hindu Dated:
27/02/2015)
1.
Mobile App being developed to redress
complains. Facility to start from march 1 in the Northern Railway
2. Radio
Based Signaling:
Design project to be taken up wih IIT Kanpur for alerts at unmanned level
crossing
3. Priority to Women: Nirbhaya
Fund to be used for augmenting the security of women passengers.
4. For
a safe Ride:
(a) Five year safety plan to
be framed by June 2015;
(b) Recommendations of the
Kakodkar Safety Committee: to be examined by April
©, Surveillance cameras: In
select mainline coaches and women’s coaches without intruding into privacy
(d) Geo spatial
technology: to be used to provide audio
visual warning to the road users at unmanned level crossings
(e ) Train collision Avoidance Systems: to be
installed in select routes.
**West Bengal
provisions from the railway Budget:
Kolkata metro budget
hiked by Rs 40 crore: this was Rs. 540 crore last
year, and has been revised to Rs. 580 crore in the Railway Budget 2015 (both
for the existing metro services and the pending metro projects in Bengal)
No
updates or allocation for the East West Metro project is available yet as this
is still pending under the Ministry of urban Development.
Concerns:
1.
Source
for the expenditure declared to be rs 8.56 crore over the next five years:
Problem is there is not fixed lines as from where the expenditure is met up
with. Td various here is not enough surplus to plough back into investments. Mr
Prabhu has acknowledged the problem and also suggested various sources to raise
finances, like borrowing from multilateral institutions like WB and pension
funds whose investment horizons would match the long term plans of the
railways. They would set up a holding company or a joint venture with existing
non-banking financial companies of public sector enterprises such as the Indian
Railway Finance Corporation.
2. Electrification of 6608 rout
kilometers in 2015-16 compared to 462 kms sanctioned in 2014-15 and for that
matter the plan to invest Rs. 96,182 crore in doubling/tripling or quadrupling
and electrifying 9400 kms of tracks sounds impressive but execution is the key
to it.
3. We also have seen such
ambitious plans in the past faltering at the execution stage.
4. The projected improvement in
the execution ratio from 91.8% to 88.5 % in the coming one also sounds
impressive but the fine print on expenditure needs to be watched as the ration
is easy to message. N
5. Overall this railway Budget
is a break from the past in taking a long term view about the development of
railways but is definitely financially independent and operationally efficient.
6. He has five years to reach
his destination.
7.
The
increased freight fares can also heighten cement production cost, along with
power tariff. Coal and iron n Steel will also be effected with the change.
Way Forward: Source: The
Hindu, Editorial
1.
A
Railway Budget is essentially an opportunity for any government to push forward
the GDP growth by at least 2.5% but according to man y the Modi government in
its second budget has lost this opportunity again.
2.
The
huge expectation not only in India but also wide across the world for a
completely new orientation and path breaking budget has been belied.
- However,
earnings from passengers have risen in the past year on the back of a 14
per cent increase in fares announced in June 2014.