Railway budget neglected northeast, says Tripura government

Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the railway project with Hasina during his visit to Dhaka in June previous year.

A downturn in passenger traffic and low demand from IR’s core freight sectors are blamed for the fall in revenue.

“These are challenging times …”

“The three freight corridors will be put on high priority to ensure structuring, award and implementation in a time-bound manner through innovative financing mechanism, including PPP”, Prabhu said.

In early 2015, the government had said it was aiming to increase daily passenger carrying capacity to 30 million over the next five years. He also proposed the introduction of new train services.

But all in all, much of this is not news. Where will the spike in passenger revenue come from? He also said that Indian Railways is exploring the feasibility of providing an option to our customers for drinking tea in kulhad. Prabhu has set a gross traffic earnings target of Rs 1.85 lakh crore. That compares with the seven per cent rise over past year as fewer-than-expected travellers caught the train.

The Chenganoor railway station will be converted as a pilgrimage station for Sabarimala devotees.

Minister for Railways Suresh Prabhu has rightly focused on restructuring and rejuvenating Indian Railways.

The bullet train from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, with Japanese collaboration, was also mentioned, as a force-multiplier, and in terms of technology as well as the know-how and skill development.

The announcements made around modernising the railway infrastructure, improving the safety and efficiency of the network, enabling greater private participation, improving overall passenger comfort, among others bode well for all the stakeholders, Caput said. There is also a proposed plan of making 400 Wi-Fi-enabled stations by next two years.

The hopes of people in north Coastal Andhra for getting new trains and new railway lines, were dashed by the 2016-17 Railway Budget. Station baggage carriers, known by the derogatory name “coolies” after the indentured labourers who served in the British imperial era, would be given uniforms and training in soft skills, he said.

The best thing is that he is willing to challenge the age old notion as if it is only through tariff hike that the organisation as important as the Railways can be turned around.