Railway Minister Lalu Prasad offered a bonanza to passengers by making air-conditioned travel cheaper as well as announcing eight new Garib Raths - poor man's air-conditioned train.He also announced 32 new trains apart from other pro-passenger initiatives like steel coaches with increased sleeper coaches, green toilets, frequency increase of 14 trains and extending the routes of 23 trains.Prasad has cut fares by 5% across all sleeper class in addition to cutting the fare (2-8%) for all class of AC coaches. Despite a marginal reduction in railway fares in the last budget, railways posted a 14% increase in the passenger earnings to Rs 17,224 crore for 2006-07 over 2005-06.The Railway Minister is expecting an 18% increase in passenger earnings to Rs 20,075 crore (revised estimates) for 2008-09 due to an expected increase in volume.The railways plan to introduce newly designed coaches having significantly higher capacity than the previous coaches. The reduction in fares will be applicable in these newly designed coaches, the minister said.The capacity of sleeper coaches in such coaches will be increased from 72 to 84. The capacity of sleeper coaches will also go up in AC chair car (from 67 to 102), AC 3-tier (from 64 to 81), AC 2-tier (from 46 to 48) and AC 1-tier (from 18 to 22).Railways will also introduce cushion seats in unreserved second class coaches. The number of unreserved coaches in all new trains will now be increased to six from the present four, the minister said.In order to further popularise the booking of railway tickets through Internet, railways has decided to reduce the per e-ticket charge for sleeper class and AC class e-tickets from Rs 25 to Rs 15 and Rs 40 to Rs 20, respectively. Besides this minimum charge, there will be an additional charge of Rs 5 per passenger for booking of every additional passenger subject to the maximum charges for one ticket being Rs 25 in sleeper class and Rs 40 for AC classes.Also, in order to provide updated information on the status of vaccant seats on-board the trains to the wait-listed passengers at the apporaching stations, the railways will introduce hand-held terminals for TTEs. Earnings From Passengers 2002-03--------Rs 12,575 crore2003-04--------Rs 13,298 crore2004-05--------Rs 14,113 crore2005-06--------Rs 15,126 crore2006-07--------Rs 17,224 crore2007-08 (RE)-----Rs 20,075 crore2008-09 (BE)-----Rs 21,681 croreRE=revised estimatesBE=budget estimates HIGHLIGHTS OF RAILWAY BUDGET 2008-09Review of Performance : 2007-08
