The Railway Budget presented on Wednesday focusses on improving railway safety, pushing digital transactions, listing railway public sector units and setting competitive rail fares.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley listed the focus areas of Indian Railways — passenger safety, capital and development works, cleanliness and finance and accounting reforms.
The Centre ended the colonial practice of presenting separate Union and Railway Budgets this year. The Railway Budget was presented in 12 points in the main budget on Wednesday, and the Finance Minister said that a merged budget would help the government “synergise the investments in railways, roads, waterways and civil aviation”.
No new trains
Top government sources said the Finance Minister refrained from announcing any new railway lines and trains in this budget, as demanded by various MPs, as he was constrained by the model code of conduct in force for the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur.
For passenger safety, a “Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh” fund with a corpus of ₹1 lakh crore has been created for five years. The Centre has provided a budgetary support of ₹5,000 crore out of the ₹20,000 crore earmarked for the fund in 2017-18. The Railways will arrange the balance fund from its own resources, the Finance Minister said. The Centre will soon lay down guidelines and timelines for implementing various safety-related works out of the fund. Unmanned level crossings on broad gauge will be eliminated by 2020, Mr. Jaitley said.
The Minister talked about offering a “competitive ticket booking facility” to the public.
Significantly, service charge on e-tickets booked through the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has been withdrawn. Earlier, the IRCTC used to levy a service charge of ₹20 on sleeper class and ₹40 on AC class e-tickets. At present, 68% of rail tickets are booked through the IRCTC.
The service charge waiver may hit the Railways’ revenues by ₹2 crore a day, senior Railway Ministry officials said. However, the IRCTC will be able to raise money from the market as Mr. Jaitley announced a plan to list the railway PSU on the stock markets.
The Indian Railway Finance Corporation and IRCON too will be listed.
Mr. Jaitley acknowledged that the Railways faced stiff competition from other modes of transport dominated by private players. “Transformative measures have to be undertaken to make Indian Railways competitive to retain their position of pre-eminence.”
The Railways will enter into partnerships with 18 logistics players to provide an end-to-end integrated transport solution for select commodities. Rail rolling stock will be customised to transport perishable goods, especially agricultural produce.
Fares may change
The Finance Minister also spelt out a new formula to set fares for passenger and commodities.
“The tariffs of Railways would be fixed, taking into consideration costs, quality of service, social obligations and competition from other forms of transport,” he said.
Railway lines spanning a length of 3,500 km will be commissioned in 2017-18 against 2,800 km last year, and at least 25 stations are expected to be awarded for station redevelopment in the next financial year.
As many as 500 railway stations will be made differently-abled friendly by providing lifts and escalators.
The Centre will frame a new Metro Rail Policy with focus on “innovative models of implementation and financing, as well as standardisation and indigenisation of hardware and software”.
For cleanliness, all rail coaches will have bio-toilets by 2019. Plants for environment-friendly disposal of solid waste, along with conversion of biodegradable waste to energy, will be set up at the Jaipur and the New Delhi railway stations, along with five more stations.
The Minister said that 7,000 railway stations would get solar power.
