President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday emphasised the need to strengthen affirmative action as a tool for inclusion while urging the rejection of divisive tendencies rooted in perceived social hierarchies.
The Lower House of Parliament took up the Demands for Grants and Appropriation Bills after two adjournments as the ruling and Opposition MPs engaged in a matching duet over demands for an apology by Rahul Gandhi and the Adani issue.
Prabhu said the Ministry was preparing a plan till 2030.
He has now to show that he can take on the vested interests within the railways which are resisting change through corporatisation
Opposition, including Bharatiya Janata Party, Left and other parties, on Tuesday walked out of the Lok Sabha, charging the government with indulging in one scam after another and saying they would not be party to the passage of the Finance Bill and the Railway Budget.
Indian Railways has plans to decongest network and become more self dependent.
When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tables her Budget on February 1, the numbers could be something to cheer.
Nirmala Sitharaman's messaging was clear when she presented a well-balanced Budget with an eye on state elections in nine states followed by a general election next year, observes Ramesh Menon.
According to state officials, the project envisages lifting of 17.40 thousand million cubic feet of water from river Thunga to Bhadra reservoir and 29.90 TMC from Bhadra reservoir.
The amount constitutes 45 per cent of the railways' total wage bill.
The public sector behemoth is looking at forming joint ventures with states.
'The most important expenditure in the Budget that indicates employment generation is infrastructure.'
India's decrepit state-run train services stand to receive at least a 25 per cent boost in investment to over $9 billion.
Kerala Finance Minister KN Balagopal on Friday urged the Centre to provide more fiscal powers to the states as well as increase the shareable proportion of the GST collections. Besides, he asked the central government to expedite approval for the semi-high-speed railway line or the Silverline project from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasargod. The project is mired in controversies.
There was a plan to increase the Railways' revenue by augmenting carrying capacity. This target has, however, become the source of a bitter battle between two ministries - the railways and steel - and provoked serious arguments over the "Make in India" programme.
Rail Budget caters to all sections of the society and showcases a vision to reorganise and rejuvenate the national transporter
'Kavach', which literally means armour, is being promoted by the railways as the world's cheapest automatic train collision protection system.
The idea is to get the budget passed by Parliament along with Appropriations Bill and the Finance Bill by the end of March as this would ensure implementation of the Budget proposals from April 1.
The upcoming Akshay Kumar starrer Toilet: Ek Prem Katha is set to use toilets of the Indian Railways
The finance minister will also visit the school in Tamil Nadu where she studied from KG to Class 5.
Suresh Prabhu has announced a slew of measures to improve servcies in trains and railway stations
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.
Anticipating healthier economic growth, the Railways has targeted a record Rs 1.6 lakh crore in revenue for the next financial year, while no increase has been proposed in passenger fares and freight rates.
With Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget presentation lasting for about one hour 31 minutes on Tuesday, the finance minister's budget speech this year became the shortest ever since 2019.
Hit by Covid waves and slowdown, the Indian Railways has still not been able to return to its pre-pandemic passenger traffic, data by ministry of Railways has revealed. In February, the national transporter received 413 million ticket bookings - 43 per cent higher than the previous year, but only 61 per cent of the 675 million in February 2020. According to the statistics, that was the last time the Railways saw more than 500 million bookings in a single month.
Experts caution that the rally in these stocks may fizzle out soon, as the overall market sentiment still remains weak.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to present Union Budget on February 28.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee presented the Railway Budget on Friday. In her third Railway Budget speech, Banerjee said atleast one doctor will be available on long distance trains.
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The introduction of fuel adjustment component in passenger fares will merely add Rs 450 crore.
The Indian Railways will borrow Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion) from the market through its dedicated financing arm IRFC in the 2012-13 fiscal, Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi said on Wednesday.
The push to develop Ayodhya as a tourism centre, accompanied by large-scale infrastructure projects, comes on the back of years of limited income growth and tourist inflows.
Besides advancing the presentation of the Budget to perhaps the first week of January, , there are four new initiatives that could be rolled out from the next Budget, says A K Bhattacharya.
"Call it a craze, fever or national interest but HSR is our window to the outside world."
A look into Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's Duronto trains.
LHB coaches are safer. Two high-level railway safety commissions came down heavily on ICF coaches, recommending their replacement by LHB, says Bibek Debroy.
The Railway Minister has announced that there is an urgency to attract FDI in Railway projects.
A combination of factors, including heavy investments in US Treasury bonds and dollar sales at a healthy profit, facilitated the Indian central bank in transferring a record surplus of Rs 2.11 trillion to the government for 2023-24 (FY24). The RBI's dollar purchases increased in FY24, supported by robust capital inflows endorsing the economy's health.
Budget session will begin on February 23 and conclude on May 8
"Earlier, governments were busy in vote bank appeasement but we are busy satisfying people," the prime minister said.
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