Railway Budget- Highlights

Review of Performance : 2007-08       

·         Double digit growth in traffic earnings maintained in first nine months.

·         Growth in passenger earnings 14%.

·         Expected growth in goods earnings 14%.

·         Gross Traffic Revenues 16% higher than the previous year and 2% higher than the Budget Estimates.

·         Operating Ratio likely to improve from the budgeted 79.6 to 76.3 per cent – best in last four decades.

·         Return on Capital – an all time high of 21 per cent.

·         Cash Surplus before dividend expected to be a record Rs.25,000 cr.

·         Net Revenue expected at Rs. 18,416 cr and surplus after payment of dividend expected at Rs.13,534 cr.

Budget Estimates 2008-09

·         Freight loading target: 850 million tones.

·         Revenues in Freight earnings to be Rs.52,700 cr;  Passenger earnings to be Rs.21,681 cr.

·         Gross Traffic Receipts to be Rs.81,901 cr – an increase of 12.6 per cent over RE.

·         Cash surplus before Dividend to be Rs.24,783 cr after making an ad-hoc provision of nearly Rs.5000 cr for anticipated recommendations of the VI Central Pay Commission.

Annual Plan 2008-09

·         The Annual Plan of Rs.37,500 cr is the largest ever Annual Plan so far.

·         Thrust areas include enhancement of high density network routes, improvement and expansion of traffic facility and network, construction of flyovers, bypasses and upgradation of goods-sheds.

·         New Lines  - Rs.1,730 cr, Gauge conversion - Rs.2,489 cr, Electrification - Rs.626 cr, Metropolitan Transport Projects - Rs.650 cr.

·         Track renewal - Rs.3,600 cr, Bridges - Rs. 600 cr, Signal & Telecommunication works -Rs.1,520 cr, Road over/under bridges - Rs. 700 cr and manning of unmanned level crossings - Rs.600 cr.

·         Passenger amenities - Rs. 852 cr, the highest so far.

·         Targets : New Lines - 350 kms, Gauge conversion - 2,150 kms, Doubling - 1000 kms.

Passenger Services

Trains

·         10 new Garib Raths to be introduced.

·         53 pairs of new trains.

·         Extension of trains : 16 pairs.

·         Increase in frequency : 11 pairs.

·         300 additional services in Mumbai suburban.

·         Special train from Anandpur Sahib and Patna Sahib to Gurudwara Sachkhand Sahib during tercentenary function of Shri Guru Granth Sahib of Gurta Gaddi.

·         Special train between Pune and Delhi for Commonwealth Youth Games being held in Pune from 12^th-18^th October this year.

Amenities

·         Provision of on-line coach indication display board; on-line train arrival departure information board; on-line reservation availability information board.

·         Provision of discharge-free green toilets in all 36,000 coaches in XI Plan period at a cost of about Rs.4,000 cr.

·         LHB design coaches for all Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains over next few years.

·         Provision of LHB coaches with stainless steel bogies in Mail/Express trains.

Concessions

·         Senior citizen concession for women enhanced to 50% from existing 30%.

·         Free Monthly Seasonal Ticket to girl students up to graduation level in place of 12^th standard and for boys up to 12^th standard in place of 10^th standard.

Improvements in ticketing

·         Termination of queues at ticket counters targeted in two years.

·         Ticket booking on mobile phones;  E-ticket for waitlisted passengers.

·         Increase in Unreserved Ticketing Systems counters to 15,000 and ATVMs to 6000.

Reduction in passenger fares

·         One rupee discount per passenger for fares up to Rs.50 in non suburban Second Class (ordinary and mail/express)

·         5% discount across the board for passenger fares beyond Rs.50 for all non suburban Second Class (ordinary and mail/express).

·         Increase in discount for travel in new design high capacity reserved coaches.

·         Reduction in fare – AC-I : 7%; and AC-II : 4% (the reduction will be half for popular trains and during peak period).

Freight Business

    Reductions & Concessions  

·         5%  reduction in freight rates for Petrol and Diesel.

·         14% reduction in freight rate of Fly-ash.

·         Liberalisation of Traditional Empty Flow direction incentive scheme

-          30% discount on entire traffic in place of incremental traffic booked from goods shed.

-          Increase in discount on incremental traffic booked from private sidings from 30% to 40%.

·         6% freight concession for traffic booked from other States for stations in North Eastern States.

New Initiatives

·         Target for loading fixed at 850 MT in 2008-09.

·         Blue - Print prepared for High Density Network.

·         Top priority being given to port rail connectivity projects.

·         New and dedicated iron ore routes to be upgraded/constructed.

·         Work on Eastern freight corridor from Ludhiana to Dankuni (Kolkata) and Western freight corridor from Delhi to JNPT to start in 2008-09.

·         Procurement of Rolling Stock: All time high of 20,000 wagons, 250 diesel and 220 electric locomotives to be manufactured.

·         New Wagon Leasing Policy and Wagon Investment Scheme formulated to increase availability of wagons in the system.

·         Discounts for development of bulk and non-bulk goods terminals.

Safety & Security

·         Multi-pronged scheme to strengthen railway safety through various automatic devices like anti-collision device etc.

·         Rail accidents have reduced remarkably despite substantial increase in gross traffic volumes.

·         Fire resistant material to be used in coaches.

·         Unmanned level crossings at busy sections to be manned on a fast track basis.

·         Integrated security plan drawn up through installation of CCTVs, metal detectors etc.

Welfare Measures

       Social Welfare

·         99%  backlog vacancies for SCs/STs filled up in special campaign launched since 2004.

·         Appointment of candidates from SCs/STs/OBCs exceeded their respective quotas in             Group D appointments.

·         Minorities welfare cells to be opened at Railway Board and Zonal Railways.

·         One time exercise of appointing Railway Porters as gangmen and to other Group D posts.

·         Mother-Child Health Express to be run on a pilot basis at concessional fares in collaboration with Rajiv Gandhi Foundation for providing medical facilities to mother and child.

Staff Welfare

·         Per-capita contribution to Staff Benefit Fund to be increased by ten times from Rs.35 to Rs.350 for 2008-09.

·         Northern Railway Central Hospital at Delhi to be made centrally air-conditioned.

·         Two divisional hospitals at Jaipur and Hubli to be upgraded to central hospitals.

·         A new divisional hospital at Ranchi and an OPD block at Integral Coach Factory to be constructed.

·         Employees who joined Railways from other agencies/PSUs etc and are eligible for pensionary benefits, would now be eligible for post retirement complimentary passes as per the norms being set.

 Future Vision

·        Vision 2025 document aims at setting the roadmap for coming 17 years – customer centric and market responsive strategic initiatives.

·        Information Technology Vision 2012 aims at radical changes in IT applications on a common platform with focus on improvement in operational efficiency, transparency in working ad better services to the customers.

·        Multi-Departmental Innovation Promotion Group at Apex Level.

·        Public-Private Partnership schemes to be launched for attracting an investment of Rs.1,00,000 cr over the next five years for developing world class stations, rolling stock ad other logistics.

·        Commercial use of Railway land by Rail Land Development Authority to give a boost to Railway Revenues.

Other Important Announcements

·        A new rail coach factory to be set up in Kerala.

·        A new wagon re-construction unit to be set up at Garkha in Chapra District.

·        Modernisation and development of Workshops at Jamalpur, Lilluah, Perambur and Ajmer.

·        Taking over of Mokama and Muzaffarpur wagon factories.

·        Setting up of a 1000 MW thermal power plant, a joint venture of Indian Rail Bijli Company Ltd. with NTPC,  at Nabinagar District of Auragabad, Bihar