With a fresh focus on new infrastructure and the highest ever allocation for the railways and road sector, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a capital expenditure of ₹1.48 crore for the railways in the Budget.
He said by next year people can use modern train-sets being developed at the Integral Coach Factory and the Railways will be transformed into an affordable, green mode of transport. The Railways will cross a total revenue of ₹2,00,840 crore this year, as per the revised estimates.
In FY 2019, Railways has a ₹1,48,528-crore plan, reflecting a threefold increase in Plan size against FY14, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said at a Rail Bhavan conference. The Plan size for fiscal 2019 is higher than the revised Plan of ₹1,20,000 crore for the present fiscal.
The government has proposed a budgetary support of ₹53,000 crore for fiscal 2018-19. There is also a drop in the budgetary support to the railways for the fiscal 2017-18 — with the support being slashed by over a third to ₹40,000 crore against the budgetary estimate, and even ₹5000 crore lower than the previous year.
Market borrowings
There has been an increase in the market borrowing target — to ₹54,900 crore. This includes institutional finance of about ₹26,400 crore, to be used for project finance; and ₹28,500 crore for procuring rolling stock.
There are no indications on fares and freight tariffs in this Budget, as the Railways now changes tariffs through the year. A decision on dynamic fares will be taken soon, the Minister said.
Agencies add : Dedicated freight corridors are planned and electrification being taken up as a priority task for which Indian Railways is expected to explore other avenues to raise funds, the Finance Minister said.
WiFi and CCTVs will be progressively provided in all trains and there will be escalators at stations with a 25,000-plus footfall.