Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu was supportive of the proposal of the finance ministry and NITI Aayog to discard the 92-year-old practice of presenting a separate Railway Budget. The move itself may save a gross amount of Rs 10,000 crore for the railways in dividend payment. As the Narendra Modi government moves away from this colonial practice, Shine Jacob takes a look at the achievements against targets set by the last Railway Budget presented in February this year.
- Economic health
The railways is expecting a revenue of Rs 1,84,820 crore during the current financial year (FY17), which officials claim will be achieved this year. However, this appears to be unrealistic considering there was a 7.74 per cent fall in freight earnings in July, compared with the year-ago period. In the first three months, earnings from freight had dropped by 11 per cent. Coal traffic, too, has dropped rapidly from 253 rakes during the first three months of FY17 to about 180 rakes. As far as passenger services are concerned, except third AC, all other passenger services are loss-making now, because of no fare hike. However, through rationalisation of freight rate for coal and dynamic pricing in premium trains, it is hoping to get higher revenue.
- New trains
One of the major announcements of Prabhu's Budget in 2016 was about the introduction of trains like Antyodaya Express, Humsafar, Tejas and UDAY. All these four trains are set to hit the tracks in the next two months. While three-tier AC train Humsafar is targeted at low-budget commuters, who want to graduate to air-conditioned travel by paying a bit more, Tejas will have service attendants such as air hostess, besides bringing the speed advantage of 130 km per hour. On the other hand, Antyodaya Express, a long-distance, fully unreserved, super-fast train service will be targeting common man and UDAY (Utkrisht Double-Decker Air-conditioned Yatri) will be overnight trains plying on the busiest routes to read full story & more about..
- Food and catering services
- Passenger entertainment
- Make in India
- Insurance scheme
- Rail Development Authority
- Swachh rail
- Wi-Fi stations
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