President of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry Dr Mahesh Gupta has described the Railway Budget 2016-17 as a pragmatic one which has well-defined strategies and stresses on modernization, employment generation, freight movement, socio-economic welfare and private participation.
“The employment focus of the budget is highly encouraging as Railways shall generate 23 crore man-days by 2018-19 of which 9 crore man-days are envisaged in FY17-18 and 14 crore in FY18-19”, he said.
The formulation of three pillars of strategies viz. new sources of revenues, new norms and new structures shows the government’s commitment towards modernization and expansion of the system, said Gupta said.
The creation of Joint Ventures with State Governments for undertaking rail based projects is a historic decision and will open up new avenues for sharing the ownership of Railways, enhance management bandwidth for project execution, strengthen the spirit of cooperative federalism and enable States to jointly decide their priorities for development of backward regions, he said.
The announcement of 44 new projects and setting up of 2 locomotive factories under the Make in India initiative of the Government is inspiring as these initiatives will attract more investments in the economy, he said.
The redevelopment of 400 stations through PPP will spur private investments in the economy which is the need of the hour, he said.