After instituting a pre-budget hike in ticket prices, Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal in his speech has said that improvements in services need to be paid for in part through regular hikes in ticket prices over 10 years. He has announced specific measures to improve passenger safety and introduced others for making the Railways more disabled-friendly.
The Railway Budget for 2013-14, presented in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, proposes a host of safety and amenity measures, new projects and trains, but with a pinch of inflation. Freight rates — and passenger fares too, if Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has his way — will be revised every six months.
Railway budget 2013-14: Highlights
While seeking to innovate in several ways, Mr. Bansal has spared economy class passengers from any burden, but those travelling on superfast trains and reserved compartments are now required to shell out more in the form of supplementary charges, reservation fee, clerkage and cancellation and tatkal charges.
Freight rates too have been hiked by about 5.79 per cent on almost all categories of commodities in a bid to offset the increase in the fuel bill of Rs. 5100 crore in the next financial year. The hike will yield Rs. 4,200 crore and Mr. Bansal contended that the Railways would absorb the loss of Rs. 850 crore on passenger fares arising from the hike in diesel and electricity charges.
However, the hike in other charges will yield Rs. 483 crore, thus leaving the Railways to bear a smaller gap of Rs. 400 crore.
The attempt has been to pass the entire burden of the diesel price hike to the respective segments and bring down the operating ratio of the Railways. Mr. Bansal promises to bring it down to 87.8 per cent and ensure a surplus for the first time in recent years of Rs. 12,000 crore in the next financial year.
Despite the austerity measures built in, the plan expenditure has been pegged at Rs. 63,000 crore, just about Rs. 3,000 crore more than the budget estimate for the current financial year (Rs. 60,000 crore plus), but which was revised to Rs. 52,000 crore due to financial constraints.
The other highlights of the budget are the introduction of 107 new trains, a special coach in select trains with the latest amenities, training for technical and financial staff to make them remain abreast with the happenings in the transport segment.
The Railways promise to appoint 1.52 lakh people; of these, 47,000 vacancies will be filled by weaker section and physically challenged applicants.
Besides new projects for electrification, doubling of lines, laying of new lines and gauge conversions, Mr. Bansal has announced 17 new factories and initiatives, including a forged wheel factory in Rae Bareli, constituency of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
A rail tariff authority will be put in place and it will take a six-monthly call based on the hike in diesel and electricity charges. While passengers have been spared the hike in diesel prices, it was made clear that henceforth they too would have to bear the burden much like the cargo segment.
For now, passengers travelling in Second Class in regular trains will not be required to pay more. Supplementary charges for superfast trains have been increased by up to Rs. 25, starting with Second Class passengers, who will have to bear an additional Rs. 5.
Keywords: Railway budget 2013-14, passenger fares, Pawan Kuman Bansal, rail budget, railway budget, diesel price hike
Compare the cost of railway ticket to bus ticket.
Railway fare are way low.a 25% hike in fares,ignoring the barking politicians can make better
looking and cleaner trains.get rid of the roaches and rats from the trains with better
methods.the toilets in the trains can be closed at the bottom and vacuum cleaning at the
major junctions can help to keep the tracks free of fecal waste .presently the longest railway
in the world is also the biggest open toilet in the world. The newer train compartment should
be equipped with closed toilets.
To get votes all political parties do not want to raise the ticket cost and want keep the
railways as the filthiest railway in the world.personally I will not take a long travel on Indian
railway.
Raise the price of the tickets but please can we get improved and efficient service from Railways in return? Can we expect clean trains, eatable food, a ticketing service that is accessible and platforms that do not resemble cowsheds ??
The Railway budget did not focus on revenue generating projects like
completion of doubling of track between Chennai-Kanyakumari. Only a
meagre section of doubling is covered for 2013-14. It has failed to
give stress on coverage of more lines under electrification. Railway
Minister is again committing mistakes in increasing the number of
trains instead of taking concrete steps in providing good coaches in
all routes. Many projects of 2012-13 like doubling of tracks and
electrification is getting spilled over to 2013-14. Guage conversion
for 2012-13 targetted for 800 km was scaled down to 575km and for
2013-14, it will be for 450 km only. Budget should have made enough
provisions towards improving directional stations at Tambaram,
Koodalnagar-Madurai to decongest the main city stations. The Ministry
has to draw a timeline in augmenting the services and in introducing
new trains and should not be delayed. In all, the real budget has
already been presented by him on 10th January 2013
One question that probably comes every year is what about new train routes, faster trains, better stations.What about the dedicated freight corridor.
Promises are made every year but the follow up does not seem to be as important as the announcement of the schemes themselves.
Why are we still living in the "british indian railways" Why are we still repairing the colonial railway system? First thing that railway needs is to come out of its bureaucratic colonial setup to a modern goal based organization.
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