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Fare, freight unchanged in rail Budget

           New Delhi: Union Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav today presented his first railway budget 2004-05 in the Lok Sabha amid continued protests from the Opposition over the presence of tainted ministers in the government of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. As expected, the Minister left passenger fare and freight rates untouched.

           However, the rates of booking parcels on Rajdhani Express, under Scale-R, have been increased by 7.1 per cent. This move is triggered by the fact that the parcel segment needs to generate additional revenue of Rs 50 crore during the remaining part of the current year. Further, the lowest Scale-E, is proposed to be merged with the standard Scale-S. This will bring down the total number of rate scales from four to three. The ratio between the highest and the lowest rates will reduce from 6.2 to 3. The rates under Scale-S will however remain unchanged. Newspapers and magazines will be booked at concessional rates uniformly at 45 per cent.

           The budget contains baggage of concessions including free second class travel for unemployed youths for central government job interviews and 75 per cent discount in fares in second and sleeper classes to widows of defence personnel. Escorts accompanying deaf and dumb persons will get 50 per cent concession in fares in first, second, sleeper classes and in season tickets. However, the concession will be 75 per cent for severe and moderate haemophilia patients. Spouse of licensed coolie porters will also enjoy a one set privilege pass to travel to any station from the station of working. Freight earnings for the current year have been revised, duly enhancing the loading target by 10 million tonnes and fixing the same at 580 million tonnes. According to Railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, freight earnings have been placed at Rs 28,745 crore, which is Rs 645 crore higher than the Interim Budget level. Freight earnings, which were brought down last year, have shown remarkable recovery due to general buoyancy.

           Declaring he would make every effort to improve railway performance, Laloo Prasad Yadav has promised nine new lines and assured that the railways will complete 17 gauge conversion projects during this fiscal. He has also announced the setting up of an Institute of Rescue and Medical Relief to deal with disaster management. The project will be set up at a cost of Rs 10 crore to give a fillip to training activities. This institute shall act as a repository for all modern extrication and medical relief techniques to ensure quicker rescue and provide prompt medical relief. Yadav proposed to survey 18 new lines including Machlipattnam- Repalli, Chhapra-Muzaffapur, Chennai- Sriperumbudur and Budge Budge-Pujali. Passenger earnings have been revised downwards to Rs 13,940 crore as against the proposal of Rs 14,200 crore in the Interim Budget. This according to Laloo Prasad, is being done in the light of actual growth rate achieved during 2003-2004.

           Thirtytwo new trains including 17 Samparak Kranti Express linking several state capitals and different parts of the country with the Union Capital have also been introduced. The seventeen Samparak Kranti Express trains are Poorvottar Express from New Delhi to Guwahati, Andhra Pradesh Express from Delhi (Nizamuddin) to Secunderabad, Bihar Express from New Delhi to Darbhanga, Chhattisgarh Express from Delhi to Durg, Gujarat Express from Delhi to Ahmedabad, Jharkhand Express from New Delhi to Ranchi and Kerala Express from New Delhi to Trivandrum.

           In the last ten years, Bihar has seen three ministers from the state present the budget with over Rs 10,000 crore being allocated for different railway projects in Bihar. A classic example is the Magadh Express whereas the previous minister Nitish Kumar extended its route to Islampur to benefit his constituencies of Nalanda and Barh. The project initially budgeted at Rs 47 crore spiralled to Rs 108 crore at the completion of the project.

Budget Highlights (Go To Top)

          The budget was predictably populist in content. Following are some of the major highlights of the Budget: * No increase in passengers' fares. * Introduction of 32 new trains. * Increase in frequency of 12 popular trains. * Khadi and Handloom products to be used for Indian Railways' upholstery and linen segment. * No new concessions for accredited journalists. * 75 percent concession in fares in second class sleeper classes to defence personnel's widows. * Concessions for deaf and dumb persons and hemophilia patients. * Free second class travel for unemployed youth for job interviews. * Introduction of 'Village on Wheels' - a tourist train for the commonman. * Unauthorized vendors will ot be allowed to enter women's apartment in suburban trains. * Deployment of lady ticket checking squads in all zonal trains. *Development of an environment friendly coach toilet discharge system. *Recycling of metallic scrap, instead of selling it. * Pure dairy products like 'Lassi' and 'Matthi' to be made available on trains and Railway catering outlets. * Refund of unused reserved and RAC tickets upto five days. * Chapra to have a new Rail wheel plant soon. * Seven to 33 percent increase in the rates for booking parcels * Extension in services of nine trains. * Privilege passes to spouses of porters.

Mixed reaction to Budget  (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: Captains of industry today welcomed the Railway budget terming it as a well planned commercial move. "Industry is more than happy. There were lot of news reports floating about increase in rates, increase in freight, increase in passenger traffic, so which had depressed the sentiments of people and they are very very heartened that railways has gone on commercial basis trying to capture more market share of the passenger and goods rather than just increase the rates," Y K Modi, Chairman of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), told reporters in New Delhi today.

          While passengers were happy as the minister had not raised any fare, there were some who questioned how the government will mop up resources to fund some of the ambitious schemes. "There is no hike in prices, is good news for the public as well as the people of India. However, I don't know how Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav is going to manage without increase in the current state of affairs," said, Ramesh Mathur, a frequent traveller and a resident of New Delhi. John James, a resident of Chennai, said: "The budget seems to be very populist and the populist budget without increasing fares and all that. Increasing trains with the tracks that we have in India I think we will be facing more accidents...moreover the trains are not running on time. I think Laloo should first think of how to run the trains on time."

            Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, a popular regional leader, said the railways would ramp up spending on modernisation of infrastructure, but the main focus of the budget was on facilities for the common man. Yadav has announced a flurry of sops for people, including free ordinary class travel for unemployed people going for government job interviews and free passes for wives of railway porters and also introduced 15 new trains, mainly to backward areas. Yadav said the railways would spend 141.98 billion rupees to boost the infrastructure and safety of rail passengers using the 150-year-old network. It will borrow 34 billion rupees from the market to meet part of the expenses.

IIMs full fee waiver to financially disadvantageous students (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: The Government on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that the Board of Governors of the country's six Indian Institutes of Management have decided to grant a full waiver of tution fees to those admitted students whose gross annual family income is below Rs. 2 lakh. Speaking during Question Hour, Union HRD Minister Arjun Minister said that the IIMs had taken a "more compassionate view" of financially disadvantaged students, and instead of agreeing to a flat fee structure of Rs 30000, has decided to grant a full fee waiver to the financially disadvantageous students. The government he said, also planned to set up an IIM in the North East in consultation with the chief ministers of the northeastern states and the IIM authorities.

Kashmir shutdown over gutting of historical school (Go To Top)

         Srinagar: Kashmir on Tuesday began a day-long shutdown after a historic school in Srinagar was gutted in an act of suspected sabotage. The three main buildings of the 115-year-old Islamia Higher Secondary School were razed in a devastating fire, which broke out around midnight on Monday. The school run by Anjuman-e-Nusrat al-Islam was founded by Moulana Rasool Shah, great granduncle of the former chairman of All Party Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. Newspaper reports said an obscure outfit, Save Kashmir Movement, has claimed responsibility for the act, acusing the Mirwaiz of betraying the Kashmiri freedom struggle. Rare manuscripts, the copies of handwritten Quran and its translation by reputed scholars and other priceless historical books were turned to ashes in the fire. The recently upgraded computer laboratory was also gutted in the fire and the loss is estimated to run into millions of rupees. Most of the shops and business establishments in Srinagar remained closed and minimal traffic plied on the streets. "All the schools and other offices are closed due to the fire. There was huge fire in all the three buildings," said Haji Mohammad, a Srinagar resident.