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The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Railway Budget for 2016-17 after the Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu assured the Lower House that monies would be found to finance the colossal capital plan of ₹1.21 lakh crore.
Breaking away from the average capital expenditure of ₹48,100 crore between 2009 and 2014, the Railways Budget has pegged its investments at double the average of previous years — a feat never achieved earlier.
Replying to the discussion on the Railway Budget in the Lower House, Prabhu said Gross Budgetary Support from the Finance Ministry, Railway Development Fund, extra budgetary resources among the avenues that would help fund the capital outlay of ₹1.21 lakh crore.
In his nearly 40-minutes-long speech, Prabhu said that a multi-pronged strategy was being adopted to address the challenges faced by the Railways and improve its overall operational efficiency and finances.
While scaling up investments, the Railways was at the same time abandoning its ‘business as-usual’ approach and going in for innovative ways of sourcing funds and executing projects.
Defends bullet train Prabhu also defended the Modi-led Government’s plans to spend huge sums of money on a single “bullet train” project (Ahmedbad-Bombay), stating that “spin-off” benefits would be felt across the entire rail network.
He highlighted that the bullet-train project was a standalone and self-financing one and the Government of Japan was financing it at very soft terms.
“The funding from Japan will come at 0.1 per cent interest and involves repayment in 50 years with moratorium for 15 years. Any banker will tell you this is like almost giving you free money,” Prabhu said.
Prabhu also said that the Railway Budget had “everything for the common man” and that common man was at the centre of his Budget.
Later, the Lower Houses passed the relevant appropriation Bills to enable the Railways withdraw certain sums from the Consolidated Fund of India for the years 2015-16 and 2016-17.
Earlier, Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha, stressed the need for Railways to spend monies on Ahmedabad –Mumbai “bullet train” project (about 600 km) efficiently.
He said that the same amount of money could have been utilised for creating larger rail capacity of say 6,000 km.
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