From sparing passengers a fare hike to introducing onboard kids’ menu, from giving weaker sections dedicated train services to announcing fully air-conditioned smart trains, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday presented, in his own words, a budget for the country and in the interest of the Railways.
Three new dedicated trains, besides double-deckers, 50 per cent reservation of lower berths for senior citizens, 33 per cent reservation of seats for women, Wi-Fi at 100 stations this year and at 400 stations over the next two years, commissioning of seven km of broad gauge tracks daily are among the key highlights of the Railway Budget. Beside ports, connectivity to the North-East has also been given priority with plans to broad gauge Mizoram and Manipur.
Dedicated freight corridors have also been envisaged for North-South, East-West and East Coast alignments. The North-South corridor will connect Delhi and Chennai, East-West will connect Kharagpur to Mumbai and the East Coast corridor will be from Kharagpur to Vijayawada.
Prabhu, who in his maiden Railway Budget speech last year had stated, “Yeh sab kaise hoga Prabhu (Oh God, how will all this be achievedIJ),” even took a page from lalu Yadav’s Railway Budget and brought back kulhads (clay cups) which were shelved by the RJD chief’s successors.
A Special Purpose Vehicle, High Speed Rail Corporation, for the much-talked-about Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet train was announced with the Maharashtra and Gujarat Governments as partners in the venture.
The Railway Minister said his second budget would rely on the three pillars of Nav Arjan, Nav Manak and Nav Sanrachna (new revenue, new norms and new structure). Prabhu also announced seven missions, including activities to increase the average speed of superfast mail trains by 25 kmph in the next five years. The seven missions are, 25 Tonne; Zero Accident; PACE (Procurement and Consumption Efficiency); Raftaar; Beyond book-keeping; Capacity utilization and Mission Hundred that would focus on sidings and freight terminals.
In last year’s Budget, Prabhu refrained from announcing any new trains, which was considered a bold step, this time under apparent political and public pressure, Prabhu was compelled to introduce a new category of trains named as Humsafar, Tejas and a double-decker service Uday (Utkrisht Double-Decker Air-Conditioned Yatri).
While Humsafar would be fully air-conditioned third A-C service with an optional catering service, smart train Tejas would move at 130 kmph and above with onboard services such as entertainment, local cuisine and Wi-Fi. Railways will also introduce Uday, an overnight double-decker on the busiest routes.
For the unreserved passenger, the budget also announced Antyodaya Express and Deen Dayalu coaches. While Antyodaya Express would be a long-distance, fully unreserved, superfast train service for the common man to be operated on dense routes (for instance New Delhi-Patna or New Delhi-Mumbai), Deen Dayalu coaches would be added to some long-distance trains for unreserved travel. These coaches will also have facilities like potable drinking water and mobile charging units.
As part of improving customer interface, Prabhu proposed interaction and feedback through social media and a dedicated IVRS system and making travel comfortable by generating over 65,000 additional berths and installing 2,500 water vending machines.
Furthermore, IRCTC will manage on board catering services and stalls at stations in a phased manner. He also said work is underway on installation of a centralised network of 20,000 screens across 2,000 stations for enabling real-time flow of information to passengers and also unlock huge advertising potential. Prabhu also announced Astha circuit trains to connect pilgrim centres.
The Minister also took the opportunity to blame previous administrations for the prevailing plight of the Indian Railways. “The public transporters’ financial condition is worrisome today because the way Indian Railways was managed in the past. So in order to come out of this situation, we have tried to address the issues,” he said.
Presenting the estimates for the next fiscal, he announced a Plan size at Rs1.21 lakh crore with focus on capital expenditure with a mix of various sources of funding in order to ensure the projects are given assured funding.
While gross traffic receipts for the coming fiscal have been fixed at Rs1.84 lakh crore with passenger earning growth pegged at 12.4 per cent and earning target budgeted at Rs51,012 crore, the freight traffic is pegged at an incremental tariff of 50 million tonnes, anticipating a healthier growth in the core sector of the economy. Operating ratio has been targeted at 92 per cent for 2016-17 as against 90 per cent in the current financial year.
“Every customer is our brand ambassador, the very reason of our existence. Therefore, each time he/she travels, the satisfaction quotient must go up”, Prabhu said amidst several rounds of thumping by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi also clapped when Prabhu announced measures to create employment opportunities for “district domiciles” in Railway projects. later Modi said this budget would play a key role in the country’s rejuvenation.
Prabhu referred to poems of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Harivansh Rai Bachchan to teachings of Gautam Buddha, as he presented the budget.
He unveiled plans to eliminate all unmanned level crossings on the broad gauge network in next four years for which an action plan, Train Collision Avoidance System, was announced. “A single accident or loss of a single life causes me great sorrow and anguish. We have a long way to go in realising our objective of a zero accident regime,” Prabhu said.
“There were big challenges before us which were beyond our control. The freight movement and pay commission burden, despite that we have tried to protect people’s interests,” Prabhu concluded.