Government Railway plans and Opposition Comments

Government on Tuesday proposed "highest ever" plan outlay of Rs 65,445 crore to the railways for the current fiscal, with a budgetary support of over Rs 30,000 crore. Presenting the Railway Budget for 2014-15, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda said the "highest ever plan outlay" would include market borrowing of Rs 11,790 crore and internal resources of Rs 15,350 crore.Another Rs 6,005 crore would be mopped up through public private partnerships (PPP) mode, while railways would create a safety fund of Rs 2,200 crore.

As per Budget Estimates for 2014-15, total receipts are projected at Rs 1,64,374 crore, while total expenditure at Rs 1,49,176 crore. Operating ratio would be 92.5 per cent, which is an improvement of 1 per cent over the last fiscal. While passenger traffic grew by 2 per cent, passenger earnings stood at Rs 44,645 crore after revenue foregone of Rs 610 crore on account of rollback in monthly season ticket fares, Gowda said, adding freight earnings are estimated at 1,05,770 crore for this fiscal.

The expenditure on pension is pegged at Rs 28,850 crore, while Rs 9,135 crore would be spent on dividend payment. On the challenges facing railways, Gowda said, "Surplus revenues are declining. There is hardly any adequate resources for development works." The surplus resources, which stood at Rs 11,754 crore in 2007-08, is estimated to be only Rs 602 crore in the current financial year, he added. He also said Rs 5 lakh crore was required to complete the ongoing projects alone as only 317 of the 674 projects sanctioned in last three decades could be completed. Completing the unfinished projects would require Rs 1,82,000 crore, he said.

Observing that most of gross traffic receipts was spent on fuel, salary and pension, track and coach maintenance and on safety works, Gowda said that Rs 1,39,558 crore was the gross traffic receipts and total working expenses were at Rs 1,30,321 crore last year.

What Comments Modi Sarkar faces :

•  We expect safety for women & cleanliness. Women appealed to me and I asked from him: Datty Sadananda (Rail minister's wife)

• "Going to present my maiden budget as a rail minister of India today. Hope we are able to meet public expectations," Gowda, former chief minister of Karnataka who represents the Udupi Chikmagalur constituency in Lok Sabha, tweeted.
• Speaking to DD News ahead of the budget, railway minister Sadanand Gowda indicates a special focus on bullet trains.
• We welcome idea of bullet trains,but more important is to connect more districts to metro cities: Tariq Anwar, NCP
• I am not against idea of bullet trains,but it should not be at the cost of basic railway requirements: Jay Panda, BJD
• Yes we faced problems during our time in railway ministry,we paid more attention to populism: Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary,former MoS Railways
• The AAP is of the view that the first rail budget of the BJP-led NDA government turned out to be a missed opportunity. The NaMo government could have used its maiden rail budget to spell out its long term vision for the improvement of the health of railways, but it is unfortunately missing. The people of the county had expected that the new government to lay down its roadmap to improve the efficiency of the railways by curbing the price distortion and corruption, two major problems currently plaguing this critical sector, but the budget appears to be silent on addressing these long term concerns and belies expectations of a long term vision.The railways minister has made an honest confession about the large number of pending projects. The AAP agrees with the government that the focus should be on execution of existing projects, but in this respect too, the minister did not mention any roadmap on how the government plans to complete the job. The AAP does not agree with the minister’s announcement about the proposal to restructure the Railway Board. It is one of the rare board/corporation in the government sector which is not controlled by the IAS officers, and is run by professionals. The Aam Aadmi Party also sees a regional imbalance in announcement of new train services. A government cannot ignore the requirements of one region appease the other.
• Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday described the railway budget as "hopeless". He said that Congress states were not given their due in the Rs.164,374 crore budget. "Congress ruled states were ignored in this budget," Gandhi said.

source : abplive.in