The planning commission is likely to cap the annual plan support for the Railways at Rs 7,000 crore for the fiscal 2002-03.
The amount, however, represents an almost 100 per cent increase from the current year's level of Rs 3,540 crore. But it still falls far short of the Railways' demand for gross budgetary support of Rs 11,000 crore. The decision was made after a meeting this month between Railway minister Nitish Kumar and deputy chairman of planning commission KC Pant.
The annual plan support for Railways from the general exchequer is significant for the department as it represents about one third of its annual plan financing. According to the Railway ministry the sum of Rs 11,000 crore that they had projected was not a hefty rise considering there had been no increase in plan support during the last fiscal. The ministry had said that the sum was necessary to revive fresh investments in the long pending list of projects with the ministry. It has lined up a long list of investment for renewal of rail tracks and upgradation of facilities.
The Railways has the largest number of pending projects among all central ministries. According to data with the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, they number above 90 in the above Rs 100 crore category.
But the plan panel has countered that a larger allocation would have been counter productive as the Railways have reduced the size of their annual plan by Rs 1,000 crore in the current fiscal from Rs 11,090 crore. Besides, it has argued that the Finance ministry has already agreed to a Special Railway Safety Fund (SRSF) of Rs 17,000 crore over the next five years for upgrading the safety-related investments in the sector involving an annual outgo of Rs 1,000 crore from the general exchequer. However, within the Finance ministry, sources said the annual commitment of Rs 1,000 crore for the SRSF is extremely doubtful every year given the state of the exchequer.
The Railways have also informed that they have begun work on captive power plants as the present arrangement of power supply from state electricity boards and others was proving too costly for them. It said, for instance, compared with the generation cost of Rs 1.37 per unit of electricity, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) was supplying power to Railways at a cost of almost Rs five per unit.
