Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Feb 25: The Railways will develop a national plan envisioning a long-term perspective to planning for augmenting the rail network in consultation with all stakeholders including state governments, public representatives and other relevant central ministries. This was stated by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu after presenting the Rail Budget 2016-17.
“We have made the budget keeping the common people’s interest in mind… We have tried to modernise the system, upgradation the safety measures,” Prabhu told reporters outside Parliament. Asserting that railways will continue to improve passenger amenities in future, he said, “For the first time, National Railway Plan will be made keeping the interest of the country.” The Minister blamed the previous railway administrations for the prevailing condition in the national transporter.
“The public transporters’ financial condition is worrisome Thursday because the way railways was managed in the past. So in order to come out of this situation, we have tried to address the issues,” he said. “The budget was prepared in such a condition when there were big challenges before us and which were beyond our control. The freight movement, pay commission burden, despite that we have tried to protect people’s interests in the budget,” Prabhu said. The budget has been made keeping in mind the need of the future and also the present requirement.
Dwelling on financial problems, he said, “Finance ministry has its own compulsions. Despite the constraints, we have increased the Plan size to Rs 1.21 lakh crore for the next fiscal. It will be spent on the capacity augmentation like doubling projects.” Referring to joint venture route adopted for executing rail projects, he said, “We have also joined hands with state governments to implement projects in respective states. It is a first Rail Budget where capacity augmentation is the main focus.”
Earning falls short of target by Rs 15K cr
Railways’ revenue from passenger fares as well as freight rates is expected to fall short of the Budget target by Rs 15,744 crore in the current fiscal. While it had budgeted to earn over Rs 1.83 lakh crore in 2015-16, as per the revised estimates it is going to earn about Rs 1.67 lakh crore. Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu attributed the shortfall to tepid economic growth due to global slowdown. “Historically declining model share of Indian Railways, which dropped from 62 per cent in 1980 to 36 per cent in 2012, is continuing to exert pressure on the institution,” Prabhu said presenting the Rail Budget for 2016-17. Indian Railways has budgeted to earn from fares and freight Rs 1.84 lakh crore, which is about 10 per cent increase over the revised estimated for the current fiscal, ending on March 31. For 2015-16, earnings from passengers fares are expected to be Rs 45,376 crore, as against the budgeted Rs 50,175 crore. Hence a shortfall of Rs 4,798 crore. As regards earnings from goods, the figure in revised estimates came down to over Rs 1.11 lakh crore, from budgeted over Rs 1.21 lakh crore. The shortfall is Rs 9,570 crore. Shortfall from other earnings in the current fiscal is put at about Rs 1,300 crore. For the next year with an optimistic outlook for the economy, Prabhu said “we hope to generate revenues of the order of Rs 1.84 lakh crore, 10.1 per cent higher than the revised target for the current year”.
