Union Railway Minister Lalu Yadav presented the Railway Budget for 2008-09 in Parliament on Tuesday.

Following are the highlights:

Review of performance: 2007-08

• Double digit growth in traffic earnings maintained in first nine months.
• Growth in passenger earnings 14%.
• Expected growth in goods earnings 14%.
• Gross Traffic Revenues 16% higher than the previous year and 2% higher than the Budget Estimates.
• Operating Ratio likely to improve from the budgeted 79.6 to 76.3 per cent - best in last four decades.
• Return on Capital - an all time high of 21 per cent.
• Cash Surplus before dividend expected to be a record Rs.25,000 cr.
• Net Revenue expected at Rs. 18,416 cr and surplus after payment of dividend expected at Rs.13,534 cr.

Budget estimates 2008-09

• Freight loading target: 850 million tones.
• Revenues in Freight earnings to be Rs.52,700 cr;  Passenger earnings to be Rs.21,681 cr.
• Gross Traffic Receipts to be Rs.81,901 cr - an increase of 12.6 per cent over RE.
• Cash surplus before Dividend to be Rs.24,783 cr after making an ad-hoc provision of nearly Rs.5000 cr for anticipated recommendations of the VI Central Pay Commission.

Annual Plan 2008-09

• The Annual Plan of Rs.37,500 cr is the largest ever Annual Plan so far.
• Thrust areas include enhancement of high density network routes, improvement and expansion of traffic facility and network, construction of flyovers, bypasses and upgradation of goods-sheds.
• New Lines  - Rs.1,730 cr, Gauge conversion - Rs.2,489 cr, Electrification - Rs.626 cr, Metropolitan Transport Projects - Rs.650 cr.
• Track renewal - Rs.3,600 cr, Bridges - Rs. 600 cr, Signal & Telecommunication works -Rs.1,520 cr, Road over/under bridges - Rs. 700 cr and manning of unmanned level crossings - Rs.600 cr.
• Passenger amenities - Rs. 852 cr, the highest so far.
• Targets : New Lines - 350 kms, Gauge conversion - 2,150 kms, Doubling - 1000 kms.

Passenger services

Trains

• 10 new Garib Raths to be introduced.
• 53 pairs of new trains.
• Extension of trains : 16 pairs.
• Increase in frequency : 11 pairs.
• 300 additional services in Mumbai suburban.
• Special train from Anandpur Sahib and Patna Sahib to Gurudwara Sachkhand Sahib during tercentenary function of Shri Guru Granth Sahib of Gurta Gaddi.
• Special train between Pune and Delhi for Commonwealth Youth Games being held in Pune from 12^th-18^th October this year.

Amenities

• Provision of on-line coach indication display board; on-line train arrival departure information board; on-line reservation availability information board.
• Provision of discharge-free green toilets in all 36,000 coaches in XI Plan period at a cost of about Rs.4,000 cr.
• LHB design coaches for all Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains over next few years.
• Provision of LHB coaches with stainless steel bogies in Mail/Express trains.

Concessions

• Senior citizen concession for women enhanced to 50% from existing 30%.
• Free Monthly Seasonal Ticket to girl students up to graduation level in place of 12^th standard and for boys up to 12^th standard in place of 10^th standard.

Improvements in ticketing

• Termination of queues at ticket counters targeted in two years.
• Ticket booking on mobile phones;  E-ticket for waitlisted passengers.
• Increase in Unreserved Ticketing Systems counters to 15,000 and ATVMs to 6000.

Reduction in passenger fares

• One rupee discount per passenger for fares up to Rs.50 in non suburban Second Class (ordinary and mail/express)
• 5% discount across the board for passenger fares beyond Rs.50 for all non suburban Second Class (ordinary and mail/express).
• Increase in discount for travel in new design high capacity reserved coaches.
• Reduction in fare - AC-I : 7%; and AC-II : 4% (the reduction will be half for popular trains and during peak period).

Freight business

Reductions & Concessions

• 5%  reduction in freight rates for Petrol and Diesel.
• 14% reduction in freight rate of Fly-ash.
• Liberalisation of Traditional Empty Flow direction incentive scheme
• 30% discount on entire traffic in place of incremental traffic booked from goods shed.
• Increase in discount on incremental traffic booked from private sidings from 30% to 40%.
• 6% freight concession for traffic booked from other States for stations in North Eastern States.

New Initiatives

• Target for loading fixed at 850 MT in 2008-09.
• Blue - Print prepared for High Density Network.
• Top priority being given to port rail connectivity projects.
• New and dedicated iron ore routes to be upgraded/constructed.
• Work on Eastern freight corridor from Ludhiana to Dankuni (Kolkata) and Western freight corridor from Delhi to JNPT to start in 2008-09.
• Procurement of Rolling Stock: All time high of 20,000 wagons, 250 diesel and 220 electric locomotives to be manufactured.
• New Wagon Leasing Policy and Wagon Investment Scheme formulated to increase availability of wagons in the system.
• Discounts for development of bulk and non-bulk goods terminals.

Safety & security

• Multi-pronged scheme to strengthen railway safety through various automatic devices like anti-collision device etc.
• Rail accidents have reduced remarkably despite substantial increase in gross traffic volumes.
• Fire resistant material to be used in coaches.
• Unmanned level crossings at busy sections to be manned on a fast track basis.
• Integrated security plan drawn up through installation of CCTVs, metal detectors etc.

Welfare measures

Social Welfare

• 99%  backlog vacancies for SCs/STs filled up in special campaign launched since 2004.
• Appointment of candidates from SCs/STs/OBCs exceeded their respective quotas in Group D appointments.
• Minorities welfare cells to be opened at Railway Board and Zonal Railways.
• One time exercise of appointing Railway Porters as gangmen and to other Group D posts.
• Mother-Child Health Express to be run on a pilot basis at concessional fares in collaboration with Rajiv Gandhi Foundation for providing medical facilities to mother and child.

Staff welfare

• Per-capita contribution to Staff Benefit Fund to be increased by ten times from Rs.35 to Rs.350 for 2008-09.
• Northern Railway Central Hospital at Delhi to be made centrally air-conditioned.
• Two divisional hospitals at Jaipur and Hubli to be upgraded to central hospitals.
• A new divisional hospital at Ranchi and an OPD block at Integral Coach Factory to be constructed.
• Employees who joined Railways from other agencies/PSUs etc and are eligible for pensionary benefits, would now be eligible for post retirement complimentary passes as per the norms being set.

Future vision

• Vision 2025 document aims at setting the roadmap for coming 17 years � customer centric and market responsive strategic initiatives.
• Information Technology Vision 2012 aims at radical changes in IT applications on a common platform with focus on improvement in operational efficiency, transparency in working ad better services to the customers.
• Multi-Departmental Innovation Promotion Group at Apex Level.
• Public-Private Partnership schemes to be launched for attracting an investment of Rs.1,00,000 cr over the next five years for developing world class stations, rolling stock ad other logistics.
• Commercial use of Railway land by Rail Land Development Authority to give a boost to Railway Revenues.

Other important announcements

• A new rail coach factory to be set up in Kerala.
• A new wagon re-construction unit to be set up at Garkha in Chapra District.
• Modernisation and development of Workshops at Jamalpur, Lilluah, Perambur and Ajmer.
• Taking over of Mokama and Muzaffarpur wagon factories.
• Setting up of a 1000 MW thermal power plant, a joint venture of Indian Rail Bijli Company Ltd. with NTPC,  at Nabinagar District of Auragabad, Bihar.

Railway Budget 2008-09: Complete Coverage

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Source: Press Information Bureau