Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge presented the interim Rail Budget in Parliament on Wednesday, amidst uproar over the Telengana Bill and was forced to cut short his speech. The minister said 17 new premium trains and 38 new express trains will be introduced. He left passenger fares and freight rates unchanged. The budget is for the first four months of the of the fiscal year 2014-15 that begins in April. Mr Kharge's maiden budget comes just months away from the general elections.
Here are the highlights from his speech:
- No increase in passenger fares or freight charges
- To introduce 38 new express trains.
- To introduce 17 new premium trains
- To introduce 10 new passenger trains
- Premium air-conditioned special train in Delhi-Mumbai sector with shorter advance reservation period and dynamically varying premium over tatkal fare
- More high-speed trains to be launched
- Passenger rail service to Katra and Vaishnodevi to start shortly
- Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya on railway map 2014
- Initiatives for freight corridors on eastern & western routes is an innovation in rail transport in India and will reduce transport time by half
- Railways completed 2207 kilometres of new lines against a target of 2000 km
- Electrification of 4556 km completed
- Three new rail factories now functional
- FY15 annual plan at Rs. 64,300 crore
- IRFC, the financing arm of Railways to borrow Rs. 12,800 crore from market
- Railways operating ratio, measure of expenses as a percentage of revenue, for 2013-14 at 90.8 per cent
- FY15 freight loading target 1101 MT
- FDI being enabled for rail infrastructure
