 "Suresh Prabhu, Railway Budget")
Rail minister Suresh Prabhu raised neither the passenger fares nor freight rates in his second Rail Budget tabled in the Parliament today, further increasing doubts over the ailing Indian Railways’ ability to wriggle out from its financial mess.
“Indian Railways has conventionally depended too much on the approach of tariff hikes. We intend to change that approach now to exploit new sources of revenue,” Prabhu said in his Budget speech. He added that the ministry will tap further into the existing 1.5 lakh crore long-term funding available from the LIC apart from multi-lateral financial institutions.
Read our full coverage on Union Budget 2016
Read our full coverage on Union Budget 2016
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Prabhu set an operating ratio target of 92% for the upcoming financial year, while admitting the difficulty posed by increased Rs 30,000 crore outgo on account of the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission. He also said the ministry would work on a higher plan size of Rs 1.21 lakh crore as compared to Rs 1 lakh crore spending target for 2015-16.
The minister thanked NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy for his report on railway restructuring and said the existing structure of the railway board will be reorganized along with a revamp of the public private partnership (PPP) cell and some bit of cadre restructuring.
Prabhu also said the ministry would soon begin work on revising the freight tariffs while announcing three new dedicated freight corridors (DFCs) — a North-South corridor connecting Delhi and Chennai and two East-West corridors connecting Kharagpur to Mumbai and Vijaywada.
He added that the ministry will continue the drive to delegate tender-related powers to the zonal heads and also the attempts to improve passenger amenities through social media. Indian Railways will save more than Rs 3,000 crore in the next fiscal through a host of measures including direct procurement of power.
