New Delhi: Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu made no change in passenger fares while presenting his second Rail Budget in Parliament on Thursday.
Stressing on the fact that the government’s core objective is to improve customer experience and generate jobs he added that there will be increase in seat quota this year for both women and senior citizens. While the seat quota is up 50% for senior citizens, 33% seats will be reserved for women in all categories.
Budget Highlights
-New train ‘Tejas’ at 120 km per hour
-Railways to develop three dedicated freight corridors- vis Delhi-Chennai, Kharagpur-Mumbai and Kharagpur-Vijayawada
-India’s first auto hub to be inaugurated in Chennai
-National Academy of Railways at Vadodara to be upgraded to a full fledged university
-Introduction of Antyodaya express a long-distance super fast train for common man to be operated on densely populated routes along with Deendayalu coaches for unreserved travellers
-Make our infrastructure capable to carry 25-tonne axle load
-Average speed of freight and passengers trains by 25 kmph in the next 5 years
-To commission at least 100 new freight siding in the next 2 years
-Government working on foreign rail technology cooperation scheme
-Plan to liberalize current parcel policies
-Explore possibility of leasing general purpose wagons
-Train collsion avoidance system in all major rail routes
-Rs 50 crores earmarked for innovation grants to startups
-ALL gangmen will be provided with GPS based system Rakshak which will intimate them about incoming trains
-Toilets and air conditioning to be provided in Locomotives
-Two dedicated freight corridors by 2019
-7 missions each headed by Mission Director reporting to Chairman Railway Board to be implemented for increasing efficiency
aim at generating 10-20% of revenues from non-tariff sources over the next 5 years
-Online booking of wheelchairs, Braille enabled new coaches
-Foreign Rail Technological Cooperation scheme to be formulated for technological up-gradation
-Railway board will be reorganized and chairman will be empowered
-New model to eventuate revenue of 20 stations
-Intend to use drones and GPS for monitoring physically remote projects
-National rail plan will be developed – it will create synergy with other transport networks
-All assets of railway will be put under a holding company
-New R&D centre will setup to drive long-term research
-Children’s menu of baby food, hot water will be provided to traveling mothers
-leasing out huge tracts of land available near tracks, stations for horticulture
-At least 10 good shed to be developed by Trans; loc in 2016-17 Passenger amenities and station beautification of pilgrimage centres on priority
-20,000 display screens across 2,000 station for better dissemination of information to passenger
-Integrating all issues under two mobile apps- one for ticketing other for grievances
-Phase I of East Freight Corridor to be completed by June
-First Rail auto hub in Chennai to tap automobile sector
-To develop Rail side logistics parks and warehousing in PPP mode
-FM radio stations will be invited to start on-board services
-Rail Bandhu magazine will be introduced in all mail/express trains
-Two elevated suburban corridors in Mumbai: Churgate and Virar, CST and Panvel
-Delhi’s ring railway system will be revived
-New investment framework for improving suburban rail network
-Will partner will state governments to improve sub urban system in Bangalore, Thiruvanathapuram
-Suburban systems in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Chennai will be developed
-National academy of Indian railways at Vadodara will be upgraded to a full fledged university
-Bar-coded tickets to be introduced
-Sale of tickets through hand-held terminals
-Access control to stations top be introduced at some stations on pilot basis
-e-catering service to be extended from existing 45 large stations to all 408 A-1 and A class stations
-‘Clean My Coach’ SMS service to be introduced on pan-India basis
-New uniforms of all railway employees
-Local cuisine of choice will be made available to passengers
-e-booking on concession passes for journalists to be introduced
-Retiring room to be booked on hourly basis by passenger in transit
-Battery operated cars and paid porters service for specially-abled people
-IRCTC will begin to manage catering service in a phased manner
-CCTV coverage at all Tatkal counters
-Coolies will be called Sahayaks
-2,500 water vending machines installed at railway stations
-Cabinet approved joint ventures with State governments and 17 consented. 6 MoUs have been signed with state governments
-Locomotives with auxiliary generating cars are being produced, this will eliminate power cars, thereby led to an increase in number of coaches
-All major stations to be brought under CCTV surveillance in a phased manner
-Increasing senior citizens quota by 50%
-Introduced wi-fi services at 100 stations this year and will be introduced in 400 more next year
-1,17,000 bio-toilets will be installed this year
-Bids have been invited for redevelopment of HABAIBGANJ station. 4 more stations will be developed this way
-1,780 automatic ticket vending machines for passengers implemented
-Enhanced capacity of e-ticketing system from 2000 tickets/min to 7,200/min
-Set up dedicated IVRS system to answer to queries by passengers
-World’s first bio-toilet introduced in Dibrugarh Rajdhani
-44 new projects valued Rs 92,714 crores to be implemented this year
-65000 new berths added by augmenting coaches
-Work on Katra-Banihal section in Jammu and Kashmir progressing satisfactorily
-Better connectivity of northeast region is of utmost importance
-Broad gauge lumdig-silchar section opened
-Finalised bids for two new loco plants
-8.5 lakh crore to spent over 5 years for modernization of railway infrastructure
-Delegated to the Zonal railways all tender related powers
-Unmanned level crossings will be eliminated by 2020′
-Expect revenue growth of over 10% this year, says Railway Minister
-1,600 km of electrification this year and 2,000 km in the next year are proposed
-Railways to generate 9 crore man-days in financial year 2017-18 and 14 crore man-days in 2018-19
-Rs 24000 cr contracts awarded since November last year
-Aiming for revenues of Rs 184820 crore in 2016
-2500 km of new broad gauge tracks will be commissioned
-This year the average rate of new track laying was 7 kms per day and it will increase to 13 km per day next year
-This year’s capital plan 1.21 lakh crores
-Navmanak – expenses will be analysed to in crease productivity
