Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will announce Railway Budget on Thursday (25 February) at 12:00 pm in the Lok Sabha.
Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha and board members will also be present on the occasion.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is now presenting the budget in parliament.
Here are the highlights:
- The budget reflects the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
- This is challenging time, may be the toughest.
- PM once said his vision is to make Railways the backbone of India’s progress and eco development
- co-operation, collaboration and communication, hallmarks of Indian Railways’s journey forward
- For year 2016-17 we expect the operating ratio of 92%
- A saving of Rs. 8,720 crore for budget estimates of last year will be effected this year
- Rs. 1.21 lakh crores capital plan in Rail Budget 2016.
- Every rupee investment in Indian Railways can impact economic output in the larger economy by a factor of 5
- Indian Railways will generate employment of 14 crore man-days in 2018-’19
- We plan to eliminate all unmanned level crossings by 2020
- 4,450 unmanned level crossings eliminated; 1,780 automatic ticket vending machines implemented
- We plan to spend 8.5 lakh crore over 5 years for modernisation of railway infrastructure
- Indian Railways to surpass ambitious target of commissioning 2,500 kms of broad gauge lines, almost 30% higher than last year
- Our mission is to ensure 100% transparency. Social media is also being used as a tool to bring transparency
- Social Media has been converted to a complaint redressal mechanism
- North-East India especially Mizoram and Manipur to be connected through broad gauge soon
- Every passenger should get confirmed tickets by 2020
- 1,600 km of electrification in2016 and 2,000 km in the next year are proposed Read more
- We will introduce WiFi services at 100 stations this year, 400 more stations over next two years
- Reserved middle bays in coaches for women security
- Increased quota of lower berths, in coming financial yr. We r increasing senior citizen quota/coach by 50%
- Passengers can now purchase beds even in general coaches
- Work on Katra-Banihal section of Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail link progressing satisfactorily and 35km of tunneling completed
- Enhanced capacity of e-ticketing system from 2,000 tickets per minute to 7,200 per minute
- 1780 automatic ticket vending machines and 225 cash coin & smart card ticket vending machines
- 2-4 Deen Dayalu coaches to be added in some long distance trains for unreserved travel with portable water & more mobile chargers
- Will introduce Humsafar Express , fully air-conditioned third AC service with an optional service for meals
- Will introduce sub-quota of 33% for women in each of the reserved categories in catering
- Children’s menu, baby foods, baby boards to be made available for travelling mothers
- 20,000 display screens across 2,000 station for better dissemination of information to passenger
- We will introduce separate toilets for “divyaang”(differently-abled) people
- Propose to invite FM radio stations to provide train borne entertainment via PA systems in trains
- Porters to not be called ‘coolies’ but be called ‘sahayaks
- We intend to give special focus on exploring advertisement potential
- Aim to generate 10-20% of Revenues from non-tariff sources over next 5 yrs by monetising assets
- Ajmer,Amritsar,Gaya,Mathura, Nanded, Nashik, Puri, Tirupati, Varanasi, and other pilgrim stations to be beautified
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