Railway Budget 2016: NE states to be benefited

After seeing the certain arrangements made by Prabhu in the recent budget, it seems like he is driving the railway industry right behind Narendra Modi’s “Digital India” campaign.

Railways would get Rs 40,000 crore budgetary support from the government as Rs 30,000 crore is the loss on subsidizing passenger fares.

Prabhu announced plans to eliminate all unmanned level crossings by 2020, electrify 2000-km rail line next year and increase electrification budget by 50 per cent.

Prime minister in his earlier speeches during the 2014 elections and after forming the government has been insisting on making the public transport system the growth engine which the railway minister Suresh Prabhu highlighted early in his one-hour-ten-minutes budget speech.

Some of these sources of income the minister outlined are the station redevelopment programme to monetise land and buildings through commercial exploitation of vacant land, monetising land along tracks, and use its vast physical infrastructure for commercial exploitation through advertisement.

This wasn’t surprising as many of his projections from a year ago have come crashing down. Another new train service Tejas, that will showcase the future of train travel, will operate at the speed of 130 kmph and above.

The government will hand the railways INR 450 billion in funding for next year, up 12.5 per cent on this year, but most of that will be sucked up by the wage bill rise.

“Besides, Mr (Suresh) Prabhu has also laid stress on the skill development in the Railways which is a positive step”, Singh said expressing hope the Budget will be benefit all. This ratio has consistently remained above 90 percent in the last few years, reflecting a lower capacity to generate surplus that can be used for capital investments. The shortfall is Rs 9,570 crore.

Sitangshu Ranjan Dey a local said, “Our Rail Minister has placed a Rail Budget of Rs 1.21 lakh crores, this may not be a very big figure but he gave importance to completion of the ongoing projects”. “Railway has typically focused on increasing revenues on tariff hikes”. A partnership with Google will see it extend free wi-fi to 400 more stations within two years after the service hits 100 stations this year, he said.

“Initiatives towards developing an integrated railway network, greater emphasis on dedicated freight corridors, and improving port connectivity as well as north-east connectivity would go a long way in expanding the freight business”, Ficci President Harshvardhan Neotia said.