Thrust
1. Safety 2. Project Delivery 3. Passenger Amenities/Services with focus
on food services & on cleanliness, sanitation, toilets 4.
Financial Discipline 5. Resource Mobilization 6. IT Initiatives 7. Transparency & System Improvements.
Major Challenges facing the Railway System
Vast tracts of hinterland waiting for rail connectivity.
Railways expected to earn like a commercial enterprise but serve like a welfare organization.
Railways carry Social Service Obligation of more than Rs 20,000 cr by
carrying services below cost. This is nearly 16.6% of GTR and is almost
half of Railways’ Plan Outlay under budgetary sources.
Surplus revenues declining; Hardly any adequate resources for its development works.
Tariff policy adopted lacked rational approach; passenger fares kept
lower than costs; loss per passenger kilometer increased from 10 Paise
per Km in 2000-01 to 23 Paise in 2012-13.
‘Decade of Golden Dilemma’ – choosing between commercial and socialviability.
Share of Railways in freight traffic coming down consistently.
Rs 5 lakh crore required for ongoing projects alone.
Focus so far in sanctioning more and more projects with inadequate
prioritization rather than completing them; Of the 674 projects worth
Rs1,57,883 cr sanctioned in the last 30 years, only 317 could be
completed.
Completing the balance requires Rs 1,82,000 cr.
Most of Gross Traffic Receipts is spent on fuel, salary and pension,
track& coach maintenance and on safety works . In the year 2013-14,
Gross Traffic Receipts were ` 1,39,558 crore and total Working Expenses
were` 1,30,321 crore,
The surplus, after paying obligatory dividend and lease charges, was`
11,754 crore in 2007-08 and is estimated to be ` 602 crore in the
current financial year.
Works to be re-prioritized with more focus on doubling and tripling to decongest the over-utilized network.
Recent fare and tariff hike to mop additional revenue of about `
8,000 cr. Alternate resource mobilization need to be explored as
enlisted.
o Leveraging Railway PSU Resources by bringing in their investible surplus funds in infrastructure projects of Railways.
o Domestic investments and FDI in rail infrastructure. o Pursuing Public Private Partnership.
Near Plan-holiday approach.
Prioritizing and setting timelines for completion of the ongoing projects.
Decision Support System for project implementation.
Strategic partnerships and transparency in procurements.
Aggressive indigenization of imported products.
Developing locomotives, coaches and wagon leasing Market.
Provision of ` 1,785 crore for Road-over-bridges and
Road-under-bridges; speedy clearances, online design standardization and
decentralised sanctioning powers.
Multi-pronged approach to eliminating Unmanned Level Crossings.
Advanced technology for rail-flaw detection – Vehicle Borne
Ultrasonic Flaw Detection System to detect rail and weld fractures and
pilot trials on Ultrasonic Broken Rail Detection System (UBRD) at two
locations.
Safety standards to match international practices. Simulation Center to study causes of accidents.
Pilot project on Automatic door closing in mainline and sub-urban coaches.
4000 women RPF constables to be recruited in addition to 7000 RPF constables.
RPF escorting teams in trains to be provided mobile phones helping
passengers in contacting them in distress. Coaches for ladies will be
escorted. Care to be taken for ladies travelling alone.
Building boundary walls around stations through PPP route to be explored.
Rail Tourism
Eco-Tourism and Education Tourism in Northeastern States.
Special Packaged trains on identified pilgrim circuits like Devi
Circuit, Jyotirling Circuit, Jain Circuit, Christian Circuit,
Muslim/Sufi Circuit, Sikh Circuit, Buddhist Circuit, Famous Temple
Circuit, etc.
Tourist Train from Gadag to Pandarpur via Bagalkot, Bijapur and
Solapur covering the pilgrim and tourist places of Karnataka and
Maharashtra.
Tourist Train from Rameshwaram covering pilgrim and tourist places like Bengaluru, Chennai, Ayodhya, Varanasi and Haridwar.
Special Train featuring life and work of Swami Vivekananda.
IT Initiatives including revamping reservation system
Revamping Railway Reservation System into Next Generation e-Ticketing System.
E-ticketing to support 7200 tickets per minutes to allow 1,20,000 simultaneous users.
Augmentation of Coin operated Automatic Ticket Vending Machines.
Provision of platform tickets and unreserved tickets over internet.
Shift towards large scale Integrated computerization of major functions of Indian Railways to take place.
o Paperless offices in Indian Railways in 5 years.
o Wi-fi Services in A1 and A category stations and in select trains. o Real-time tracking of trains and rolling stock.
o Mobile based Wakeup Call System for passengers. o Mobile based Destination Arrival Alert.
Speed of Trains
Bullet train proposed on identified Mumbai-Ahemdabad sector.
Setting up of Diamond Quadrilateral Network of High Speed Rail
connecting major metros and growth centers of the country; ` 100 cr
provided for initiating the project.
Increasing of speed of trains to 160-200 kmph in select 9 sectors. All experimental stoppages to lapse after 30.09.2014.
Only operational feasibility and commercial justifications for new
stoppages; alternate train connectivity to meet genuine demands.
Financial Performance 2013-14
Traffic growth declined and expenditure registered excess in 2013-14 as compared to Revised Estimates.
Originating passengers achieved less by 46 million; and passenger earnings short by ` 968 cr over Revised Estimates.
Gross Traffic Receipts at ` 1,39,558 cr though short of RE by ` 942 cr grew by 12.8% over the previous year.
Ordinary Working Expenses and Pension outgo is higher than the Revised Estimates.
The year ended with a surplus of ` 3,783 cr by registering a shortfall of ` 4,160 cr over the revised target.
Dividend liability of ` 8,010 cr to government fully discharged.
Railways generated internal resources of ` 11,710 cr in 2013-14 for plan finance.
Operating Ratio at 93.5% deteriorated by 2.7% over R.E.
Budget Estimates 2014-15
Freight loading of 1101 MT, 51 MT more than 2013-14. Growth in passenger traffic – 2%.
Freight Earnings – ` 1,05,770 cr.
Passenger Earnings – ` 44,645 cr, after revenue foregone of ` 610 cr on account of rollback in monthly season ticket fares.
Total Receipts – ` 1,64,374 cr; Total Expenditure – ` 1,49,176 cr;
Pension estimated at ` 28,850 cr.
Dividend payment estimated at ` 9,135 cr.
Operating Ratio to be 92.5%, an improvement of 1% over 2013-14.
Trains
5 new Jansadharan trains to be introduced.
5 Premium and 6 AC trains to be introduced. 27 new Express trains to be introduced.
8 new passenger services, 5 DEMU services and 2 MEMU services to be introduced and run of 11 trains to be extended.
