Stating that the Budget is passenger friendly, Mamata Banerjee said the annual plan for 2011-12 is Rs 57,630 crore.
The Prime Ministers Office is upset that the Congress party was deliberately playing up the Saeed-Vaidik meeting in Parliament to detract attention from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with the Chinese president. Rediff.com contributor Renu Mittal reports
Nobody bothered to articulate the upsides; instead, the four-year tour of duty and denial of life-long pensions got played up.
Job-seekers for government and related opportunities found that their future was at risk, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
Railways, rural infrastructure, urban rejuvenation, solar and transmission and distribution of electricity are the new priorities, says Vinayak Chatterjee.
In 2019-20, the capital expenditure of Indian Railways (IR) increased 60 per cent over 2016-17. The draft National Railways plan envisages a further increase in IR's capital expenditure, but an analysis by Business Standard shows that IR has come to depend more on borrowings and budgetary support. In 2016-17, while 11 per cent of its capital expenditure (capex) was funded by internal sources, in 2019-20 the ratio dropped to less than 1 per cent. A 2015 Committee on Restructuring Railways had flagged that over-reliance on borrowings could exacerbate the financial situation of Railways.
Stocks to watch: Container Corp, Snowman Logistics & Transport Corp
'The finance minister said, the MSME is the backbone of the economy. My question is, what have you done for the sector?'
Presenting the Budget for 2020-21, Sitharaman said Rs 1.7 lakh crore has been provided for transport infrastructure in 2020-21.
President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday said the country's farm production and procurement increased during 2020-21 crop year despite the pandemic and agricultural exports reached a record level of Rs 3 lakh crore during the same period. In his address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament at the start of the Budget session, Kovind said the government is focusing on making the country self-sufficient in edible oils besides making special efforts to promote organic farming, natural farming and crop diversification. "My government is working continuously to empower the farmers and the rural economy of the country... I would like to give maximum credit to the small farmers of the country for this consistent success and strengthening of the agriculture sector," he said.
It will also provide support to the government for finalising the financial and implementation models.
As a bonanza to southern states, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is expected to allocate funds worth Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 60 billion) for Chennai and Bangalore Metro rail systems in the forthcoming Budget.
The amount constitutes 45 per cent of the railways' total wage bill.
RailTel Corporation of India, Indigo Paints, Home First Finance Company, Indian Railway Finance Corporation, and Suryoday Small Finance Bank are among the companies looking to tap the market.
On August 15 last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort that the Indian Railways would launch 75 Vande Bharat Express trains by August 2023. Later, in her 2022 Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that 400 Vande Bharat trains will be manufactured in the next three years, which are expected to cost between Rs 40,000 crore and Rs 50,000 crore. Those upbeat announcements come after a series of cancelled tenders, vigilance actions against officials and interdepartmental rivalry that delayed the addition of these iconic trains developed entirely indigenously by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.
Finance Minister P T R Palanivel Thiagarajan has proclaimed his determination to set Tamil Nadu's fiscal house in order in five years, and Friday will show how he plans to go about it when he rises to present the Stalin government's maiden budget, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Kavach', which literally means armour, is being promoted by the railways as the world's cheapest automatic train collision protection system.
'The bad dream can turn into a ghoulish nightmare for the BJP if the Gujjars in Rajasthan and the Patels in Gujarat, both BJP-ruled states, were to fish in troubled waters and relaunch their respective agitations for quotas in government jobs,' warns Rajeev Sharma.
It's time Rahul Gandhi became attuned to the reality of the 21st century instead of recycling failed political jargon of the 20th century,' argues Virendra Kapoor.
Thank you, Mr Prime Minister, for bringing colour to our colourless, drab, despair-ridden lives.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai also finds a mention among these architectural marvels.
Indian economy about to take-off
As spending on infrastructure has three times the desired impact, the government's Rs 111 trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline should be accelerated: Assocham president, Vineet Aggarwal
China has launched bullet train services along a mountainous route touted as the most challenging high speed rail project that the country has ever built.
Listing of LIC will help bring in greater transparency, public participation and also deepen the equity market.
Disclosing details of his assets, he said the reports about the rise in his wealth had been done without checking facts.
The first phase of the project, 8.8-km stretch between Wadala and Chembur, is expected to be thrown open to public in Aug.
'Metro man' E Sreedharan, a much-admired technocrat who is credited with changing the face of public transport system in the country, will join the Bharatiya Janata Party giving a boost to the saffron party ahead of the assembly polls in Kerala.
Railway Budget has not discriminated against any state.
Ritu Beri said the look of the uniform will be an ode to India and her exoticism
The focus is now on having premium service to give passenger comfort and increasing train speeds.
Silverline seems symptomatic of how Kerala -- its claimed education, awareness and all -- overlooks its real problems, notes Shyam G Menon.
There's a 13 per cent increase over last year, in an effort to put its flagging revenues back on track.
Yielding to opposition demand, the government on Thursday agreed for a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on Gaza situation on Monday but not before proceedings of the day were washed out over the issue.
To facilitate foreign direct investment (FDI) in high- speed rail projects, the government is likely to allow private sector entry in operations.
New rates effective will be effective from 15 November.
The Commerce and Industry Ministry has circulated a draft Cabinet note for inter-ministerial consultations.
It is time to pack up, sir! Please resign and save some honour of the Lok Sabha, an anguished Sheela Bhatt reports from the Lok Sabha press gallery after watching the shameful goings on over the tabling of the Telangana Bill.
The train will traverse through seven tunnels and over 30 small and large bridges.
Modi's critics will say that he has put up cement and steel structures, but weakened the institutions of governance whereas Nehru strengthened them, observes T N Ninan.
