To make Indian Railways future ready, the government proposes to provide ₹1.10 lakh crore next fiscal, of which ₹1.07 lakh crore will be spent as capital expenditure. It is budgetary support portion from the plan size of ₹2,15,058 crore, which also includes borrowing and internal revenue generation.

The national transporter’s total revenues are expected to bounce back to ₹2.08 lakh crore in fiscal 2021-22, according to the Union Budget. Of this, 29 per cent (₹61,000 crore) will be by moving passengers and ₹1,28,000 crore by moving goods like coal, steel automobile, cement, foodgrain.

The passenger revenue projection for next year, is four times the ₹15,000 crore this year, when Covid-19 transmission fears took a toll. Commenting on quadrupling projections, the Railway Board Chairman Sumeet Sharma said in a press meet that Railways will try to meet the target and cross the budgeted passenger revenue as it looks to restore normal passenger services next year (after discussing with State governments) given the higher capacity that was built.

As per the revised estimates, budgetary support to Railways for the present fiscal – when national transporter’s revenue was largely marred by Covid-19 outbreak – has been slated at ₹ 1.08 lakh crore, including a loan component. The loan, which includes an interest bearing and non-interest bearing part, appears to be high given that the budgetary support for the year in revised estimates was at ₹ 29,250 crore, according to Railways. The Budget provides an amount of ₹ 79,398 crore in the revised estimates as “special loan for Covid-19 related resource gap”.

Railways will monetise Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) assets for operations and maintenance, after commissioning, as a part of monetising operating public infrastructure assets for new infrastructure construction, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, adding that the strategic disinvestment of Container Corporation of India (Concor) will be completed this year.

Total revenues for the present fiscal have been revised downwards to ₹ 1.41 lakh crore, almost 34 per cent lower than budgeted amount — largely due to shrunk passenger revenue.

Pointing out that the National Rail Plan of Indian Railways has been made with a core focus to lower the logistics cost and improve Make in India, the Finance Minister said that the Eastern and Western dedicated freight corridor will be commissioned by June 2022.

Railways’ borrowing through Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) is pegged at ₹ 65,258 crore including ₹ 5,235 crore of budgetray support for 2021-22. For the present year, it was revised upwards to about ₹ 1.10 lakh crore.

The FM added that plans for taking forward future dedicated freight corridors – East Coast corridor from Kharagpur to Vijayawada, East-West Corridor from Bhusaval to Kharagpur to Dankuni and North-South corridor from Itarsi to Vijayawada will be undertaken. Detailed Project Reports will be undertaken in the first phase.

Use of indigenous signalling technology, focus on increasing safety, were some of the other announcements.

With 72 per cent of broad gauge route kilometres of Indian Railways to be electrified by 2021, the entire broad gauge network will be electrified by 2023. The Budget also announced funds for Kochi Metro, Chennai Metro (₹ 63,246 crore), Bengaluru Metro, Nagpur Metro and Nasik Metro. Also, two new, light-rail technology — like Metro Lite, Metro Neo — will be used for tier-2 cities and feeder routes for in bigger cities.

Railways used the lockdown period to complete track maintenance, overhaul freight business and fast track the ongoing infrastructure projects in Jammu and Kashmir, and North-East connectivity.

Revival in railways freight loading in last five months reflects modal shift to Railways supported by doubling of average speed of freight trains to 46 kmph, various tariff and non-tariff measures, and a “Freight Business Development Portal” for online booking of freight. The year is likely to close with higher loading over last year.

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