Uber, Ola battle it out for railway passengers: Here's how it will work

After fighting it out on roads, cab aggregators like Uber and Ola are set to come face to face on railway tracks. Both the players are now in race to tie up with the Indian Railways to offer services to train travellers.

With the Suresh Prabhu-led railways ministry toying with the idea to offer space for cab operators at railway stations, both the market leaders have started the battle to garner the railways' market share. Through this initiative, the Railways is likely to add an additional Rs 120 crore to its non-fare revenue. 

Related Story:  Luxury On Demand: Now Book A BMW From Your Ola App

As per the plan, those users who book tickets through Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) app will be able to schedule a ride with a cab aggregator on a future date and time. If the Railways moves ahead with the plan, it will have to float a tender for this from the concerned parties.

The other major service providers in the sector are Baxi, Shuttl, Meru and BlaBlaCar. Though the San Francisco-based Uber is aggressively moving ahead in Indian market, Ola still holds a majority share.

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Last Railway Budget: Promise vs performance

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..

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• Food and catering services
• Passenger entertainment
• Make in India
• Insurance scheme
• Rail Development Authority
• Swachh rail
• Wi-Fi stations

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After 92 years, Rail Budget is history

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the merger of the Railway and General Budgets from 2017-18, ending a 92-year-old colonial tradition.

It also cleared abolishing the classification of Plan and non-Plan expenditure in the Budget and agreed in-principle to advancing its presentation in Parliament from the last working day in February. The government wants the Finance Bill to be passed before April 1.

“The government is in favour of advancing the Budget date. However, a number of states are going to the polls early next year. We will take a call on a new date after studying the election calendar,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at a press conference after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are slated to go to the polls early next year.

Suresh Prabhu will be the last railway minister to have presented a Budget and Jaitley will be the first finance minister to present a combined one next year.

“India was the only country with a separate Railway Budget. We are breaking that tradition. However, the financial powers of the railways will stay. We will not have to pay a dividend of about Rs 10,000 crore annually. We will also be able to increase our capital spending,” Prabhu said, at the read full story

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THE 5 RAIL BUDGET ‘MISSES’

CABINET DECISIONS

HOW MODI BROKE FREE OF PAST LEGACIES…

…BUT THERE’S MORE EXPECTED

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“India was the only country with a separate Rail Budget. We are breaking tradition”

Suresh Prabhu,

Union rail minister