Rail Budget may spare freight, lower class fares

Upper class fares may go up; Rail ministry seeks Rs 2,000 cr additional Budget support.

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad is expected to increase upper class passenger fares by up to 5 per cent while keeping the freight and lower class passenger fares unchanged in his maiden Rail Budget on July 6.

"We do not want to push for any major fare hikes that can have an inflationary impact," top level government sources said. The Rail Budget will focus also on several customer-oriented policies, they said.

The rail ministry has sought an additional budgetary support of Rs 2,000 crore from the Centre over the Rs 8,547 crore already allocated in the Interim Budget for 2004-05. The sources, however, said the finance ministry was unlikely to provide any additional support.

The rail ministry sources have indicated that the emphasis would be on customer comfort than on burdening the railway finances further by new investment projects. The number of new projects would be kept at minimum.

The officials said that the ministry was more concerned about the pending projects specially in the rural and backward areas.

They added that efforts would be made to expedite these projects and allocate more funds for the purpose.

The Budget could, hence, expect another variant of the Remote Area Rail Sampark Yojana announced by former railway minister Nitish Kumar in his interim budget. He even allocated Rs 20,000 crore for completion of 230 such projects worth Rs 43,000 crore in next five years.

The minister may also continue with Nitish Kumar's policy of announcing employment generating projects. Kumar, in his 2003-04 budget had announced 20,000 new jobs in the safety category.

Lalu Prasad may also take a leaf from customer care schemes announced in the interim budget. Kumar in his budget speech had indicated that a regular incentive scheme in for people travelling during the off-season could be worked out and passengers could also could occupy their reserved seats on the basis of a computer generated slip.

The ministry, in the forthcoming Rail Budget, may announce a frequent traveller plan for Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Jan Shatabdi, first and second AC, where the travellers could earn a 10 per cent discount on the ticket fare from the off-season travel and a 2 per cent discount from the peak season travel that could be encashed at the end of the year.

The sources also indicated that this year, the railway tickets would be made available through Automatic Teller Machines.

Ministry officials claim that there were at least one lakh positions lying vacant, which the minister may try to fill up. The officials added that the minister could announce 40,000 jobs for the gangmen (track layers) and around 10,000 jobs under the Rail Protection Force.

On a new track

• Upper class fares may go up
• Rs 2,000 cr additional Budget support sought
• Focus on pending, rural and backward area projects
• Priority to employment generating projects