Passengers’ safety, food services, sanitation prominently figure in Rail budget; no increase in fare & freight charges
Passenger safety, amenities, food services, sanitation and bullet trains are some of the major highlights of the Railway Budget for 2014-15 presented to Parliament today. There is no proposal to increase passenger fares and freight charges. Introduction of five jansadharan, five premium, six AC, twenty seven express, eight passenger trains, two MEMU and five DEMU services are the other announcements made by Railway Minister D V Sadananda Gowda in the Lok Sabha. The budget has a provision of bullet trains starting off with an already identified Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector, allocation of 100 crore rupees for Diamond Quadrilateral network of high speed rail connecting major metros and increasing speed of trains to 160 to 200 kilometres per hour in select nine sectors. The sectors include Delhi-Agra, Nagpur-Bilaspur, Mysore-Bengaluru-Chennai, Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Chennai-Hyderabad. Food courts will be set up at major stations for providing regional cuisine while onboard through emails, SMS and smartphones. Feedback service through Interactive Voice Response System on the quality of food will be launched.
Mr Gowda said safety of passengers is of paramount importance and an amount of 1,785 crore rupees has been earmarked for road under-bridges and over-bridges. The Railway Minister announced use of Modern Vehicle Borne ultrasonic Flaw Detection System for detecting rail and weld fractures. In addition, ultrasonic broken rail detection system will be tried at two locations on a pilot basis. He also proposed a pilot project for automatic closing of doors before start of train both in mainline and suburban coaches in select trains. He said the Railways require an investment of 40 thousand crore rupees for track renewals, elimination of unmanned level crossings and construction of road under-bridges and over-bridges.
Four thousand Railway Protection Force, RPF, women constables will be recruited to strengthen security in trains and at stations. Lady coaches will be escorted by RPF women constables to ensure security of women and additional care will be taken of ladies travelling alone. Battery-operated carts service will be extended to facilitate differently-abed and senior citizens to reach any platform comfortably at all major stations.
The Railway Minister said RO drinking water units will be introduced at stations and also in trains on an experimental basis. The number of bio-toilets in trains will be increased to mitigate the problem of direct discharge of human waste on tracks and platforms.
Mr Gowda said reservation system will be revamped and ticket booking through mobile phones and post offices popularized. E-ticketing system will be improved to support 7200 tickets per minute as against 2000 tickets at present. Online booking facility of railway retiring rooms will be extended to all stations. He said facility of coin-operated automatic ticket vending machines will be experimented and efforts will be made to provide facility for buying platform and unreserved tickets over the Internet.
Ten major stations of metro cities and important junctions would be developed to international standards with modern facilities and passenger amenities on the lines of newly developed airports through public, private, partnership, PPP mode. As part of green initiatives, solar energy will be harnessed by utilizing rooftop spaces of stations, railway buildings and land including through PPP mode.
The Railway Minister allocated 5,116 crore rupees for rail projects in the Northeast. He said Dudhnoi-Mendipathar New Line, Lumding-Badarpur-Silchar Gauge Conversion, Harmuti-Murkongselek and Balipara-Bhalukpong sections will soon get commissioned to boost State Capital connectivity projects in the region. Stating that Udhampur-Katra rail link is now open, Mr Gowda said the Railways have tied up with Jammu and Kashmir government for bridging Udhampur-Banihal by bus so that passengers can reach Srinagar with one single ticket from origin to destination. On projects in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the Minister said he has plans to hold coordination meetings with the officials of the newly created States to consider their requirements.
Noting that there has been focus on sanctioning projects rather than completing them, Mr Gowda said 359 projects out of 676 sanctioned during the last 30 years are yet to be completed. He said 99 new line projects worth 60 thousand crore rupees were sanctioned in the last ten years out of which, only one project is complete till date.
The Minister proposed a scheme to bring in investible surplus funds of Railway PSUs in infrastructure projects of Railways. He said as internal revenue sources and government funding are insufficient to meet the requirement of rail infrastructure, Railways are seeking Cabinet approval to allow FDI in rail sector. He said it is targeted that bulk of future rail projects will be financed through PPP mode, including the high-speed rail.
