The Budget laid out a clear road map to make Railways the key driver of economic growth and envisaged investment Rs 8.5 lakh crore over 5 years for railway modernisation.
Presenting his maiden Rail Budget, Suresh Prabhu was very much aware of the challenges that lay ahead on his path.
Prabhu, endeavored to maintain a perfect balance between the challenges of revenue generation and expectations from the Rail Budget which for a long period had been a victim of populist policies.
Prabhu underlined four goals he has set for making railway journey a passenger friendly while ultimately making the public carrier financially viable.
Decongesting the railway traffic has been a major concern for railways. To ease this pressure across the nation railway has sanctioned fast track expansion of 7000 Km of existing railway routes at the same time 1200 KM of new lines will be commissioned in the year 2015-16.
An Expansion of 77 projects covering 9,400KM of existing rail lines and their electrification has been announced this will cost over 96,000 crore.
The efforts to smoothen the rail traffic finds priority in this year's railway budget and rail minister has given Rs. 2,374 crore for this purpose.
The Railway Minister announced that long haul Journeys between metros like Delhi-Kolkata and Delhi-Mumbai could be covered overnight now.
Speed of 9 railway corridor is to be increased form 110 Km to 140kmph and from 160 Km to 200kmph.
Freight movement will be faster as freight trains could touch a speed of 100 Km per hour.
Country moves a step closer to realised dream of bullet train.
The feasibility study of bullet train on Mumbai-Ahmadabad route is expected by mid of this year.
An innovation council "kayakalp' will be set up for introducing a spirit of innovation in railways.
Indian railway will have auditing of train operations and energy savings, also land resources will be digitised.
New strategy to be chalked out to tap the advertising potential of railway stations and train through corporate branding.
A full fledged university to be set up during 2015-16.
Four railway research centers to be set up in select universities. 'Malviya Chair for railways technology at IIT (BHU) to be set up.
For the Green Initiatives, Prabhu announced a number of sustainability and energy optimization steps. An environment directorate is being set up to focus on environment management.
1000 megtawatt of solar plants will be set up by the developer on railway land. Water auditing and expansion of water harvesting system has been announced in this railway budget.
100 Demu trains will be enabled for dual fuel CNG and diesel.
To give a fillip to Tourism, 'Incredible Rail' in line with 'Incredible India' will be launched. Railway Minister announced that IRCTC is working on promoting Gandhi Circuit to mark the occasion of 100 years of the return of Mahtama Gandhi to India from South Africa.
Also a 'Kisan Yatra' to be launched for farmers for farming and marketing technique centres.
The minister has announced that all initiative announced in the budget will be taken in mission mode. It gives a hope that people will be able to experience these initiative soon.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu had said before presenting the Railway Budget that the govt has tried its best tried to fulfil the expectations of people and the Budget did turn out to be a budget for all. Here's why...
# The overall outlay for passenger amenities has been increased by 67%.
# In order to cut down the travel time, the Railway Minister has announced introduction of train sets that will save 20% of the journey time
# WiFi will be made available at 400 railway stations.
# 10 satellite railway stations will be developed.
# Water vending machines will be available at more stations.
# An all India 24X7 helpline number 138 will be functional for redressing passenger grievances.
# 7,000 more toilets will be replaced by Bio-Toilets.
# A mobile application will be launched for grievance redressal.
# Train Protection Warning System, Train Collision Avoidance System will be installed on select routes at the earliest.
# The budget promised faster rail network growth in Jammu & Kashmir.
# Barak Valley of Assam will be brought on broad gauge by March.
# Coastal Connectivity Program in partnership with ports will be launched for rail connectivity to Nargol, Chharra, Dighi, Rewas and Tuna.
# On-board entertainment will be introduced in select Shatabdi trains.
# Facility of self-operated lockers will be available at stations.
# More General class coaches will be added in identified trains.
# Provision of Rs. 120 crore made for Lifts and escalators at stations.
# Newly manufactured coaches will be Braille enabled.
# Wider entrances of coaches will be built for the ease of differently-abled passengers.
The Railways has also approached NID to design user friendly ladders for climbing upper berths.
