The Union government is reportedly considering doing away with the practice of presenting a separate Railway Budget.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) stated that the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) "is distributed only amongst the UPI ecosystem, to further invest into infrastructure resilience, innovation, cybersecurity (protecting the UPI infrastructure with banks and non-banks) and customer service."
The government is introducing a 0.4% Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI person-to-merchant payments above Rs 2,000, effective October 15. This move ends the zero-MDR regime, aiming to fund UPI infrastructure and sustainability, as the previous government subsidy was insufficient to cover operational costs. Payments between individuals and most everyday merchant transactions will remain free.
Rarely do the orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal go beyond redressing the grievances brought before it by employees of the government or other state-controlled organisations.
The best way for the railways to become more professional will be to get corporatised.
A proposed 24 percent hike in the salaries of 2.6 million employees and pensioners, will land the railways with a wage bill of about $4.7 billion.
The time is opportune for doing away with the practice of a separate rail budget, and for replacing the railway ministry with an umbrella ministry of transport.
Presenting the Narendra Modi government's maiden Rail Budget, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda announced setting up of logistic parks and private freight terminals on PPP model.
The Indian Railways has proposed to introduce a modern coach "Anubhuti" with good ambience in the premier Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains providing higher travel comfort to passengers.
Recent derailments had brought the vulnerability of the national carrier into the limelight. For the railways, the fund allotment of Rs 1 lakh crore towards safety, is a welcome move, says Subrat Nath.
Currently, Railways is facing a loss of Rs 34,000 cr in passenger segment and its earnings are falling.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee engaged in a war of words during election rallies, with Modi accusing the TMC of supporting divisive forces and Banerjee alleging the BJP plans to divide the state.
The entire Budget-making exercise will be advanced by 3-4 weeks so as to complete the legislative part of financial business before April 1, the start of a financial year
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will take a final call on whether to break the tradition of presenting a separate Rail Budget, by merging it with the General Budget.
While the session will begin with the President's address to the joint sitting of the two Houses, the same day the pre-budget economic survey will be tabled.
India's Parliament is set to begin its Budget session on Friday, with opposition parties poised to demand a discussion on the alleged mismanagement of the Maha Kumbh festival in Prayagraj, where 30 pilgrims died in a stampede. The opposition also accused the government of politicising parliamentary committees and pushing its agenda through its majority. The session will start with President Droupadi Murmu addressing both houses of Parliament. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Saturday for the eighth consecutive time.
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The development comes after the National Democratic Alliance government this year broke a 92-year-old tradition of presenting a separate Railway Budget, according to suggestions made by the Debroy committee.
Going by the number of changes Mr Jaitley's next Budget is likely to see, he will go down in the history of Budget-making as the finance minister who ushered in the largest number of changes in a single Budget, says A K Bhattacharya.
Former minister for Railways Dinesh Trivedi speaks exclusively to rediff.com on a day when the Railway Budget will be presented in Parliament.
'I think governments -- whether this one or the ones earlier -- have not understood the strength of the Indian Railways... that it can easily add 2.5 per cent to GDP.'
Railways to have functional autonomy, bear salary burden
The railways is expecting a revenue of Rs 1,84,820 crore during the current financial year (FY17).
There's a 13 per cent increase over last year, in an effort to put its flagging revenues back on track.
To boost domestic manufacturing under the Make in India initiative and reduce dependency on imports, the government is expected to announce in the Budget an increase in the minimum local content requirement for public procurement, with certain sectors being granted exceptions. Currently, firms producing goods, services, or works with at least 50 per cent local content are classified as Class-I local suppliers and are preferred the most in government procurement.
Likely to be merged with Union Budget from FY18
As the finance minister rises in the House to present the Budget, some interesting facts about the annual financial plan for the country.
India's decrepit state-run train services stand to receive at least a 25 per cent boost in investment to over $9 billion.
He has now to show that he can take on the vested interests within the railways which are resisting change through corporatisation
Budget session will begin on February 23 and conclude on May 8
This was a rare instance when Gandhi raised an issue during the Zero Hour.
'When I talk to my colleagues in the Railways, they say 'aadmi toh bohot hai, lekin matlab ka aadmi ek bhi nahi hai (the Railways has a bloated workforce, but doesn't have employees with have the skillsets that matter)'.'
'Spend, but create assets, spend but make sure that people benefit from it.' 'This has been a beautiful guiding principle. And I think as a finance minister I owe so much to the prime minister for keeping this path clear before us.'
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.
'We need to put aside our anxieties about the Budget for now and possibly for long, and carry on as best as we can,' advises Shreekant Sambrani.
Debroy is expected to have a role and responsibility similar to the erstwhile chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council
Reeling under a series of derailments, the Budget is likely to announce creation of a separate safety fund of about Rs 1 lakh crore over the next five years.
The Rajya Sabha approved 15 legislations during the session while the Lok Sabha passed 23 bills, including the GST bills.
The Rail Budget we have prepared is in the interest of the nation and railways.
The 1.4% decline projected for 2025 is driven by a 5.6% (72,000) dip in the strength of railway employees to 1.2 million by next year.
