Rail Budget: How much is it effective ?
One more rail budget announced by the government with a promise to provide very awesome facilities to public.And yes with the announced budget the political games have started very similar to earlier cases.Few parties from Uttar Pradesh showed their unhappiness with the current Rail budget saying that “Uttar Pradesh has been ignored”
Indian railways has faced big losses and this time it has been increased to an estimated cost of about Rs 24,600 crore ($4.55 billion) by the ending March 31 because of a sharp rise in input costs, resulting in “deterioration of services“, railway minister Pawan Bansal mentioned on 26th February 2013.
Before discussing the topic let’s have an outlook on the important points of the budget passed
- 22 new rail lines to be established in the session 2013-14.
- Free WI-FI to be provided in trains.
- No hike in passenger fare, while Tatkal and superfast charges will be increased.
- Electrification to be done up to 1200 kms by the current year.
- Indian Railways Institute of Financial Management to be set up at Secunderabad.
- Next generation e-ticketing system to be setup by end of 2013
- 63,000 crore INR investment in the session 2013-14
- Air-conditioned Locomotive cabs
- 179 escalators and 400 lifts at A 1 and other select stations.
- 26 new passenger trains and 67 new Express trains proposed; 8 DEMU services and 5 MEMU services to be introduced; 57 train route to be expanded; frequency of 24 trains to be increased.
- special coach ‘Anubhuti’ in Rajdhani and Shatabdi express.
Everything is fine and the budget also seems very effective but does it really what the country was expecting?
How much the budget by pawan bansal is effective and how much we need ?
- Crores of money is invested on tracks and increasing number of trains but there is no proposal for improving tracks.
- Indian Railways provide one of the largest railway network in the world but with the slowest trains.
India’s railroad network, ranked among the top five in the world and is spread over 64,000 km with 7,083 stations, to ferry 23 million travellers and 2.65 million tonnes of goods daily on 12,000 passenger and 7,000 freight trains.”According to news in The times of india.
- There is no proposal on increasing speed of trains (Average speed of Indian trains is about 60KM/Hr. much less than trains of other c countries)
- WI-FI is to be introduced in trains but there is no procedure to maintain even switch boards in coaches, what people do with wi-fi if the cell-phone get discharged.
- Lifts and escalators are to be introduced in Stations but no one is trying to improve the footbridges which can’t even tolerate a huge crowd during festive seasons.(Foot bridge broke away during Maha Kumbh, many died)
- Electrification is to be done, it has been a long time since the electric engines were introduced but still most of the trains run over diesels because electrification is not completed yet.
- Many new trains are proposed but know one can confirm when they will be running on the tracks, many of the trains proposed in the last budget are still in papers only.
- IRCTC website is facing huge problem but government is spending crores in providing new technology for reservation rather than improving the current website which can be done at less cost.
- Although few months back it was in news that IRCTC was planning to spend 10 crores to improve it by 1st week of february 2013 but there is no signal of that.
Read also:IRCTC website to spend 10crore on flash drives- for better service.
Conditions of Indian Railways
One of the largest employment providing organization of world is not having a world-class-station yet, what else we can expect?
Apart from all above conclusions made Investment for security of trains and passengers seems a good point in the current budget.
Image of Dinesh Trivedi who resigned as Rail Minister after increasing rail fairs in his budget
According to Railway minster Pawan Bansal the main motive of the budget is on doubling of tracks, passenger safety and staff welfare, and that is why the outlay has been increased from about Rs 11,410 crore in 2012-13 to Rs.13,220 crore this time.
Foolish political games have started again, If any other minister from other parties would have been the minister he would have also done a very similar thing what Pawan Bansal has done but instead of thinking about improvisation of the budget next time political leaders start commenting on budget and all, Newspapers are media is there to conclude things out of the budget why these leaders start fighting ?
One of the case I remember when Mr. Dinesh Trivedi became rail minister and passed the budget including hike in rail fares as it didn’t happen since a decade,price in diesel and petrol was continuously increasing at a fast rate but train fare was not increasing, railway department kept on facing losses and a time came when hike in railway fares was proposed but again the politics entered to the field as usual and Mr. Dinesh Trivedi resigned.What was the result? Just after few years Train fare increased.
The point is why these respected leaders keep on thinking about how to beat other leader rather than thinking over how to improve the conditions of Nation.No one talks over the real issues, every one and try to manipulate the things.You can conclude how much the rail budget would be effective.
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