Indian Railways has sought a special railway safety fund (SRSF) of Rs 30,000 crore from the Finance Ministry, so that the funds could be used in removing level crossings, and building road over bridges and road under-bridges.
If level crossings are removed, they would help lower the accidents on railways level crossings.
“We have sought Rs 30,000 crore through SRSF, which will be a non-lapsable fund across the years,” said VK Gupta, Member-Engineering, Railway Board, in a conference.
Earlier, Railways had levied a surcharge on passenger and freight tariffs to build the SRSF pool during NDA’s regime between 2000-2004, which also flowed over to the UPA regime. But, Gupta added that they have not proposed any such surcharge.