Railway Minister concludes his budget speech
67 new express trains to be introduced; 27 passenger trains, 8 DEMUs
Opposition disrupts Rail Budget speech over new train announcements
Operating ratio of 88.8 percent achieved
Dividend reduced from 5 to 4 percent
Electrification of 1,200 km to be completed this year
72 additional suburban services in Mumbai and 18 in Kolkata
An independent Rail Tariff Authority has been formalised
Dynamic fuel adjustment component to be introduced on freight rates from April one, that will result in less than five per cent increase in rates
Diesel price hike added Rs 3,300 crore to fuel bill of Railways
Railway revenues to show a balance of Rs 12,506 crore in 2013-14
Planned investment of Rs 63,363 crore for 2013-14, including Rs 600 crore from PPP route
Operating ratio expected to improve to 87.8 per cent in 2013-14 from 88.8 per cent in the current fiscal
5.2 per cent growth in passenger traffic expected in 2013-14
Railway hopes to end 2013-14 with a balance of Rs 12,506 crore
Rs.100 crore for improving stations in New Delhi
Railways to set up a Debt Service Fund
Freight earning to grow by 9 per cent to Rs 93,554 crore.
Freight target fixed at 1,047 MT for 2013-14, 40 MT over the current year
Marginal increase in cancellation, reservation charges
No fresh hike in passenger fares
Modest 5-6% hike in passenger fares will add to corpus, and translate into better amenities
Rs 3,000 crore loan from Finance Ministry re-paid with interest by Railways this financial year.
Indian Railway Institute for Financial Management to be set up at Secunderabad to train rail officers on a regular basis
Railway Energy Management Company to be set up to harness solar and wind energy
47,000 vacancies for weaker sections and physically challenged to be filled up soon
New coach manufacturing and maintenance facilities to be set up in various places including Rae Bareli, Bhilwara, Sonepat, Kalahandi, Kolar, Palakkad and Pratapgarh
Rs 9000 crore investments expected including Rs 3,800 crore in port connectivity and Rs 800 crore in iron ore mines connectivity
Allocation of Rs 1,000 crore each made for railway land development authority and railway station development authority.
Railways set to enter 1 billion ton freight club of China, Russia and US
Common rail-bus ticket to be introduced for Katra-Vaishnodevi pilgrims
New train Azadi Express to places linked with the freedom struggle to be introduced, fares to be concessional
Internet booking to be provided from 0030 hours to 2330 hours
Internet booking to be strengthened with next-generation e-ticketing system to eliminate delays
Special A/C coaches ‘Anubhuti’, to be introduced in select Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains to give excellent ambience with commensurate fare
Railways will use Aadhar data base for bookings and validation of passengers
SMS alert service being rolled out shortly to intimate passengers about reservation status
Free wi-fi facility to be provided in select trains
Plan to allow e-ticketing via mobile phones
Railway committed to bring marked change in passenger amenities
Seventeen bridges identified for repair
Smoke and fire detection system envisaged
Fire extinguishers to be kept in guard vans
Aim to eliminate 31,846 level crossings
Identification of 104 stations for upgradation in places with more than one million population and of religious significance
Railways to set up six more Rail Neer bottling plants
10% reservation for women in RPF
Presence of women in RPF to go up
Plan for elephant corridor safety
Corporate safety plan proposed
Railway safety fund inadequate
Fall in accidents — per million accidents down from .41 to .13
There has been significant drop in train accidents
Rs. 95,000 crore shortfall, meeting this shortfall will mean a paradigm shift
Rs 1 lakh crore to be raised from public-private partnership, Rs 1.05 lakh crore through internal resources in the 12th Plan
12th Plan railway size to be Rs 5.19 lakh crore, with gross budgetary support of Rs 1.94 lakh crore
Steep increase in input costs have been met with hike in Freight rates: Bansal
Railways powerful vehicle driving the growth of the country: Bansal
Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal presents his maiden budget in Parliament
Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal arrives in Parliament to present his maiden budget.
A day before presenting the budget, Mr. Bansal said that there was a demand for more trains. But he did not disclose whether he would concede it, as his predecessors did.
"The government is for the people. You will have to see the budget from that point of view...," he said at an informal chat with reporters, when asked whether the budget would be people-friendly.








Very poor Railway plan.
1. Just 17 bridges identified for repair all over India, kidding me? I am sure you can find at least 17 in one state itself.
2. No plans for laying out extra tracks? When you launch new trains in bulk, you should care about their running tracks too. This means further delay on already overloaded railway tracks.
3. What's the point of increasing surcharge for reservation, (as if reservation matters. Anybody just comes and sits in the reserved compartments in UP/Bihar)
4. And lastly, everybody knows what is the state of IRCTC.
I have been a travelling from Kharagpur to Secunderabad for the past
four years. A rather simple observation is about how honestly people buy
tickets. All the trains in West Bengal and Orissa are used as local
trains and that too without a ticket. Despite contributing a lion's
share in Railways' income since decades, South Central Railway has been
the most neglected one.
Even the new lines announced in this budget are the pending projects
already announced in 2010-11 and 2011-12 budgets.
Honable Railway Minister sir,
kindly approve two requests for Northern Karnataka area.
I. Solapur Gadag Solapur shall be extended upto Hospet.
II. Bagalkot Bangalore Mysore 17308/17307 shall be revised & run from
Bijapur to Mysore via Gadag Guntakal.
Increasing Facilities! Increasing Fare Rates! Increasing in travellers!! leading to Increase in all factors BUT where is the HYGIENE n CLEANLINESS ???
Amount of Mice Increased in Each Paltform of Mumbai , public washrooms - unhygienic,spilage of water, no lights ,no fans, vegetable n fruit seller selling at the bridge making the place crowded n untidy.
Though coupons have been introduced but no machines for punching, inspite of these still people commute for their daily bread.
Introducing the no of trains is fair enough , however it is unjust to prove this phrase that " Cleanliness is next to Godliness".
It is quiet good to hear that railways has started to look at energy
management. Due to the exponential hikes in fuel price, they will
continuously be stressed to reduce the overall operational costs.
increasing the portfolio of that group to look at innovative ways to
reduce overall weight of the train by material selection, increasing
the number of passengers carried with the same weight (double decker
sleeper coach). Modify the carriage design by reducing air pockets
between the coaches are proven ways of improving the efficiency. Hope
railways looks into all these things instead of hiking the fares
No more keynote about High speed Bullet trains between the state's capitals...
Hi all, we were expecting a train from Mumbai to Kathgodam which would
provide genuine support to tourism industry of Uttarakhand which is
the main revenue generating Industry of the state. This has been a
foremost need for the tourism Industry of state, today people have to
travel to see the beautiful state of Uttarakhand through Delhi which
become to long and tiring , Unfortunately our representatives could
not convince the Railway Minister about the genuine need for such a
train we where expecting this to happen during the election year but
it didnot happen we are all sad and depressed.
Any new train announcement, a deadline to finish should be set and must be finished. In busy areas like Madras to Coimbatore on demand service should be given to the public, so people will be happy to travel. Many many years traveling public is not looked after the way they should be. It is time to look into the matter very seriously. This type of service will give great confidence with the rail minster.
There is no mention about Railways' performance on punctuality and how
it is proposed to be improved. So much emphasis laid by colleague Jairam
ramesh, there is nothing much about cleaner toilets and curbing open
defecation along the tracks.
1. Didn't understand the concept of increasing the surcharge on e tickets. Guess the purpose of computerized tickets are all about fast, accurate and cost saving. Primarily if 10000 tickets are booked online per hr, it indicates that approximately 100 ticket reservation assistants jobs are being taken care by the public. The benefit of not employing 100 ticket reservation assistant should be passed on to the ticket buyers.
2. Didn't see any steps to curtail expenditure/losses from inside. I thought that dependency on diesel should be confronted with renewable sources of energy. Probably Solar panels and wind energy. If passenger cars are fitted with solar panels across the length of say 10 to 15 passenger cars, enough energy will be generated to drive the train there by reducing direct dependency on diesel.
3. Railway minister can give wifi on trains but cannot promise to keep the trains clean.
Honorable Railway Minister. Something should be done for poor IRCTC
ticket booking site. It is providing Thousands of Crores of revenue for
Railways. Railway should spend some money to enhance servers/database
of this site for faster revenue generation as well as for public
convenience.
@Ramesh: I fully agree. In railways corruption is everywhere and there is revenue leakage. By checking this alone the railways can achieve surplus which can be utilised for improved passenger ameneties.
I wish the minister had increased the price of platform tickets to Rs. 7 if not Rs.10. Minister has only expressed the need to connect the ane with the rest of india. IN c we hoped to hear from him
the specific projects he proposes now and the stage of completing of the ongoing projects There are no details on this. It is refreshing to hear that Arunachal Pradesh will be connected to the rail network. When and how soon? Thank god, there are no extravagant like bullet trains..."
Though Visakhapatnam has an honest passenger fraternity and largest earning division of Indian railways, nothing has been given to the people of the region. There is a demand for zonal office at Vizag taking out division from east coast railways and two division from sc Railway, this has not been taken care of. Unemployed from the region are ill treated in other neighboring state. Trains to Hyderabad and towards Tatanagar are full with capacity, but who will care for these passengers.
Many time wait list passenger will not be confirmed. Persons who plan
their journey will not be able to make since the long list of waiting
list will not completely confirmed. Here a suggestion. Two second
class sitting compartments, and one A/C sitting compartment may be
attached to each train so that the wait-list passenger can travel in
that. At any time the wait-list should not exceed the number of seats
in the sitting compartments. In this way, the passenger having
confirmed tickets in 3-tier sleeper will not be put to difficulty.
Also, on the way, some of the wait-list may be confirmed. With no RAC
is required. In case, the seats become vacant, they may be given to
the passenger travelling on that day. The seats in 2nd sitting must be
of the quality as in Jan Satabdi express. I request the Railway
minister to consider this.
Govt is trying to increase fare through back door.By increasing Tatkal
fee,super fast train charges and Reservation fee they will loot
passengers.The whole Tatkal system is corrupted. IRCTC will add more
seats to Tatkal to loot passengers.More trains will be converted to
super fast with out improving running time or facility and then railway
will take more money from passengers as super fast train charge.
Railways should make arrangements to stop unreserved ticket holders
travelling in reserved compartments. Cockroaches should be eliminated
from all class compartments. Safety of passengers and luggage should be
given top most priority than adding trains.
Real time training running service developed by IIT kanpur is restored by
giving permission to IIT kanpur. The service is stopped to inconvenience
to passengers
There is no news about high speed rails or atleast any announcement towards that. And what happended to the reports submitted by Sam Pitroda and Anil Kakodkar? Nothing much about safety too. How is the Railways going to raise so much of capital?
Nothing on Tatkaal bookings ?
The govt must curb rampant corruption in railways which is main cause of losses.The public should not be made scapegoat.The minister should be made accountable if he has no ability to arrest corruption.All funds shortage should be met with curbing the leakages in railways.The public will not be burdened for massive corruption prevailing in railways.This is most effective step to raise additional resources.The efficiency should also be improved for more earning.The public is not in position to pay any additional fares as they have no further income due to galloping inflation prevailing in country caused by misgovernance & gigantic scams.
Systematic fare structure for all class. Basic fare is criteria for
determine sleeper ac-II, AC-III etc
Reduce advance reservation of train tickets to 30 days to really he
lp genuine passengers
first the review of the last budget should be given, and then the next budget should be announced. In the present scenario the trains should not be demanded, but as per the data of the railway traffic the train should be given for more convenience, it should be matter of necessity instead of pressure.
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