Railways is targeting private investment in rail infrastructure. This was announced by Rail Minister Mallikarjun Kharge while presenting the interim Rail Budget in parliament today. He said large investment needs cannot be met entirely through budgetary support, internal resource mobilisation and market borrowing. Mr. Kharge informed the House that apart from private investments from domestic investors, a proposal is also under consideration to attract Foreign Direct Investment to foster world-class rail infrastructure. He said Rail Land Development Authority has raised 937 crore rupees so far against the target of one thousand crore rupees in the current fiscal.The Railway Minister said, parcel trains will be run from the nominated parcel terminals to tap the vast potential. He said a new policy on parcels will be formulated to encourage transportation of milk across the country and a new concept of hub and spoke for parcel business will be introduced.On financial performance, the Railway Minister said, the Annual Plan 2014-15 envisages investment of 64 thousand three hundred five crore rupees as against the revised estimate of 59 thousand three hundred fifty nine crore rupees in 2013-14. He said the budgetary support from the general revenue has been proposed at 30 thousand two hundred twenty three crore rupees and internal resources has been kept at 13 thousand five hundred crore rupees. He said the Operating Ratio has been budgeted at 89.8 per cent as against 90.8 per cent current year.Talking on Budget Estimates for 2014-15, the Railway Minister said that he has proposed a freight traffic target of eleven hundred one million tonnes, which is 49.7 million tonnes over the current year's revised target.The Gross Traffic Receipts have been project at One lakh sixty thousand seven hundred seventy five crore rupees including one lakh five thousand seven hundred seventy crore rupees earnings from goods and 45 thousand 255 crore rupees from passenger traffic.Mr. Kharge said, in view of promising trend of loading freight, the target has been scaled up to about 1052 million tonnes from the budget target of 1047 million tonnes. However, the average lead of freight traffic is falling and is likely to be 622 kilometers against the budgeted 644.5 kilometers. He said the government is confident of surpassing the freight earnings target which has been increased to 94 thousand crore rupees.Mr. Kharge assured the House that the fund balances of railways would increase from 2391 crore rupees in April 2013 to 8018 crore rupees at the end of March 2014, primarily because of strict fiscal discipline. The fund balance by the end of next financial year will be 12 thousand seven hundred twenty eight crore rupees.