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Highlights of Railway Budget 2008-09
New Delhi, February 26, 2008
Review of Performance : 2007-08
·
Double digit growth in traffic earnings maintained in first
nine months.
·
Growth in passenger earnings 14%.
·
Expected growth in goods earnings 14%.
·
Gross Traffic Revenues 16% higher than the previous year and
2% higher than the Budget Estimates.
·
Operating Ratio likely to improve from the budgeted 79.6 to
76.3 per cent – best in last four decades.
·
Return on Capital – an all time high of 21 per cent.
·
Cash Surplus before dividend expected to be a record Rs.25,000
cr.
·
Net Revenue expected at Rs. 18,416 cr and surplus after
payment of dividend expected at Rs.13,534
cr.
Budget Estimates 2008-09
·
Freight loading target: 850 million tones.
·
Revenues in Freight earnings to be Rs.52,700
cr; Passenger earnings to be Rs.21,681 cr.
·
Gross Traffic Receipts to be Rs.81,901
cr – an increase of 12.6 per cent over RE.
·
Cash surplus before Dividend to be Rs.24,783
cr after making an ad-hoc provision of nearly Rs.5000 cr for
anticipated recommendations of the VI Central Pay Commission.
Annual Plan 2008-09
·
The Annual Plan of Rs.37,500 cr is
the largest ever Annual Plan so far.
·
Thrust areas include enhancement of high density network
routes, improvement and expansion of traffic facility and
network, construction of flyovers, bypasses and upgradation of
goods-sheds.
·
New Lines - Rs.1,730 cr, Gauge conversion - Rs.2,489 cr,
Electrification - Rs.626 cr, Metropolitan Transport Projects -
Rs.650 cr.
·
Track renewal - Rs.3,600 cr,
Bridges - Rs. 600 cr, Signal & Telecommunication works
-Rs.1,520 cr, Road over/under bridges - Rs. 700 cr and manning
of unmanned level crossings - Rs.600 cr.
·
Passenger amenities - Rs. 852 cr, the highest so far.
·
Targets :
New Lines - 350 kms, Gauge conversion - 2,150 kms, Doubling -
1000 kms.
Passenger Services
Trains
·
10 new Garib Raths to be introduced.
·
53 pairs of new trains.
·
Extension of trains : 16 pairs.
·
Increase in frequency : 11 pairs.
·
300 additional services in Mumbai suburban.
·
Special train from Anandpur Sahib and Patna Sahib to Gurudwara
Sachkhand Sahib during tercentenary function of Shri Guru
Granth Sahib of Gurta Gaddi.
·
Special train between Pune and
Delhi
for Commonwealth Youth Games being held in Pune from 12th-18th
October this year.
Amenities
·
Provision of on-line coach indication display board; on-line
train arrival departure information board; on-line reservation
availability information board.
·
Provision of discharge-free green toilets in all 36,000
coaches in XI Plan period at a cost of about Rs.4,000
cr.
·
LHB design coaches for all Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains over
next few years.
·
Provision of LHB coaches with stainless steel bogies in
Mail/Express trains.
Concessions
·
Senior citizen concession for women enhanced to 50% from
existing 30%.
·
Free Monthly Seasonal Ticket to girl students up to graduation
level in place of 12th standard and for boys up to
12th standard in place of 10th standard.
Improvements in ticketing
·
Termination of queues at ticket counters targeted in two
years.
·
Ticket booking on mobile phones; E-ticket
for waitlisted passengers.
·
Increase in Unreserved Ticketing Systems counters to 15,000
and ATVMs to 6000.
Reduction in passenger fares
·
One rupee discount per passenger for fares up to Rs.50 in non
suburban Second Class (ordinary and mail/express)
·
5% discount across the board for passenger fares beyond Rs.50
for all non suburban Second Class (ordinary and mail/express).
·
Increase in discount for travel in new design high capacity
reserved coaches.
·
Reduction in fare – AC-I : 7%; and
AC-II : 4% (the reduction will be half for popular trains and
during peak period).
Freight Business
Reductions & Concessions
·
5% reduction in freight rates for
Petrol and Diesel.
·
14% reduction in freight rate of Fly-ash.
·
Liberalisation of Traditional Empty Flow direction incentive
scheme
-
30% discount
on entire traffic in place of incremental traffic booked from
goods shed.
-
Increase in
discount on incremental traffic booked from private sidings
from 30% to 40%.
·
6% freight
concession for traffic booked from other States for stations
in North Eastern States.
New
Initiatives
·
Target for loading fixed at 850 MT in 2008-09.
·
Blue - Print prepared for High Density Network.
·
Top priority being given to port rail connectivity projects.
·
New and dedicated iron ore routes to be
upgraded/constructed.
·
Work on Eastern freight corridor from
Ludhiana
to Dankuni (Kolkata) and Western freight corridor from
Delhi
to JNPT to start in 2008-09.
·
Procurement of Rolling Stock: All time high of 20,000 wagons,
250 diesel and 220 electric locomotives to be manufactured.
·
New Wagon Leasing Policy and Wagon Investment Scheme
formulated to increase availability of wagons in the system.
·
Discounts for development of bulk and non-bulk goods
terminals.
Safety & Security
·
Multi-pronged scheme to strengthen railway safety through
various automatic devices like anti-collision device etc.
·
Rail accidents have reduced remarkably despite substantial
increase in gross traffic volumes.
·
Fire resistant material to be used in coaches.
·
Unmanned level crossings at busy sections to be manned on a
fast track basis.
·
Integrated security plan drawn up through installation of
CCTVs, metal detectors etc.
Welfare Measures
Social Welfare
·
99% backlog vacancies for SCs/STs
filled up in special campaign launched since 2004.
·
Appointment of candidates from SCs/STs/OBCs exceeded their
respective quotas in Group D appointments.
·
Minorities
welfare cells to be opened at Railway Board and Zonal
Railways.
·
One time exercise of appointing Railway Porters as gangmen and
to other Group D posts.
·
Mother-Child Health Express to be run on a pilot basis at
concessional fares in collaboration with Rajiv Gandhi
Foundation for providing medical facilities to mother and
child.
Staff Welfare
· Per-capita contribution to Staff Benefit Fund to be increased
by ten times from Rs.35 to Rs.350 for 2008-09.
·
Northern
Railway
Central
Hospital
at
Delhi
to be made centrally air-conditioned.
·
Two divisional hospitals at Jaipur and Hubli to be upgraded to
central hospitals.
·
A new divisional hospital at
Ranchi
and an OPD block at Integral Coach Factory to be constructed.
·
Employees
who joined Railways from other agencies/PSUs etc and are
eligible for pensionary benefits, would now be eligible for
post retirement complimentary passes as per the norms being
set.
Future Vision
· Vision 2025 document aims at setting the roadmap for coming 17
years – customer centric and market responsive strategic
initiatives.
·
Information Technology Vision 2012 aims at radical changes in
IT applications on a common platform with focus on improvement
in operational efficiency, transparency in working ad better
services to the customers.
·
Multi-Departmental Innovation Promotion Group at Apex Level.
·
Public-Private Partnership schemes to be launched for
attracting an investment of Rs.1,00,000
cr over the next five years for developing world class
stations, rolling stock ad other logistics.
·
Commercial use of Railway land by Rail Land Development
Authority to give a boost to Railway Revenues.
Other Important Announcements
·
A new rail coach factory to be set up in Kerala.
·
A new wagon re-construction unit to be set up at Garkha in
Chapra District.
·
Modernisation and development of Workshops at Jamalpur,
Lilluah, Perambur and
Ajmer.
·
Taking over of Mokama and Muzaffarpur wagon factories.
·
Setting up of a 1000 MW thermal power plant, a joint venture
of Indian Rail Bijli Company Ltd. with NTPC,
at Nabinagar District of Auragabad,
Bihar.
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