The Railway Budget for 2005-06 proposes no increase in passenger fares nor across-the-board increase in freight rates.Presenting the budget in the Lok Sabha, railway minister Lalu Prasad said he proposed to make "historic" changes in the goods tariffs to make it simple, rationale and transparent.In the proposed rationalisation, the goods tariffs will have only 80 groups of commodities instead of the existing over 4,000 commodities.Each group under a main commodity head shall have a single uniform class for different commodities in the group irrespective of their being in different physical forms and shapes and their different conditions whether raw or manufactured.With the introduction of three new classes, while the increase in freight will be contained to the barest minimum for most of the commodities, there will also be a marginal reduction in freight in certain cases, Prasad said.To ensure that freight rates of commodities being used by the common man are not increased, classes of kerosene and LPG have been reduced from 135 to 130 and 185 to 180, respectively, as a result of which the freight for kerosene and LPG will get reduced to 3.7 and 2.7 per cent, respectively.Lalu Prasad today proposed to start 46 new trains in 2005-06.
