While the Railway Minister, Mr Dinesh Trivedi, has bucked the populist trend, he has tried to meet some of the demands for new trains, and some extra concessions to travellers.
This includes 100 suburban services in Kolkata and about 100 new mail and express trains. He also admitted that the value of concessions given to passengers is at Rs 800 crore a year.
But despite this, the improvement in rail finances — reflected through the improvement in operating ratio — will be achieved without any change in accounting norms, said the Railway Board Chairman, Mr Vinay Mittal.
Calling the budget “path breaking”, Mr Mittal said that the budget has emphasised on the need to make the Railway system safer, to consolidate, and decongest the congested routes which carry most of freight and passenger traffic.
GAME CHANGER
“There is also a thrust on terminal development there is a terminal logistic corporation that is proposed. This will harness the good sheds of the Railways and will provide a comprehensive logistic solution including last mile connectivity. If this proposal goes through which I am very confident that it will. Then in my view it will act as a game changer for freight traffic,” Mr Mittal said.
Meanwhile on the proposal to have a dynamic fuel adjustment component (FAC) within passenger fares, Mr Mittal said that the issue will be “examined”. He added that the FAC is a long term plan.
On lower IRFC borrowings, Mr Mittal said that Railways should take into consideration ability to pay back the money employ those funds in productive areas. “What we have said is that Rs 15,000 crore is what we can deploy in productive areas,” he added.
The extent of tax free bonds component of IRFC borrowing will be decided by the Finance Ministry.
The Railways is also not contemplating any divestment or listing of any its public sector undertakings (Ircon, RITES, IRFC) on the stock exchanges next fiscal.
Meanwhile, railway experts commended the budget.
“The Railways has done extremely well to move the additional nearly 50 million tonnes of freight this year. That it has done so in economically and politically difficult times makes the achievement even more commendable,” Mr K.L. Thapar, Chairman, Asian Institute of Transport Development, said.