SSB General Awareness: Railway Budget 2017 Analysis

For the first time India’s railway budget was announced along with union budget. Within 1 week of announcement the Maharashtra government has sanctioned 7 new rail line projects. This is of no surprise as the plan includes a 22% rise in the Railways Budget with the total capital and developmental expenditure set at Rs 1.31 lakh crore for the railways in 2017-18, including Rs 55,000 crore that will be provided by the government. This year the rail budget has been merged with union budget which will improve our transportation system as well.

The four major priorities the government has set out for the Railways are as follows:

_·          passenger safety,

_·          development work (infrastructure),

_·          cleanliness of stations and

_·          a reform in railway accounts

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This merger will help the common mass who travel to their homes, for work related etc.. and will help faster recovery of our economy from Demonetization. Following are my analysis on rail budget:

• No transaction charge or service tax will be there on tickets booked through IRCTC. This will save Rs. 40 for A.C. reservation and Rs. 20 for sleeper reservation. This tax was already removed during demonetization to promote digitization. Digital payments for cashless economy.
• A total of 500 railway stations will be made differently abled-people friendly. Provision of lifts and escalators will be provided for easiness of the especially abled-people.
• New rail safety fund introduced. Rashtriya Rail Suraksha Kosh will be established over a period of 5 years, with a corpus of Rs 100,000 crore. This will increase the safety of passengers.
• By 2019, all coaches of the Indian Railways will be fitted with bio-toilets. The first bio-toilet-fitted train, Gwalior-Varanasi Bundelkhand Express, has been running since January 2011. The bio-toilets in the Gwalior express ensure that the undercarriage is clean and without any faecal depositions. The other advantage is that single bacteria recharge works for nearly a year. The anaerobic bacteria used in the green toilets can withstand extreme climates and common disinfectants. They are resistant to normal cleaning solutions used by the railways.
• SMS-based ''clean my coach service'' is also there to keep the trains hygienic. This will promote swatch bharat abhiyaan and will cause less hindrance for passengers travelling.
• For safety of people who don’t travel in rails all the unmanned railway level crossings will be done away with by 2020. This would reduce the accident related concerns.
• Another passenger facility introduced, the Coach Mitra facility this will help them to register all coach related complaints. This result in satisfaction of passengers and help improve services of the railways.
• With no service charges competitive booking facility will be introduced.
• Budget touched upon other transformative measures to make railways competitive which include implementing end to end integrated transport solutions for select commodities through partnership with logistics player, who would provide both front and back end connectivity. “Rolling stock and practices will be customized to transport perishable goods, especially agricultural products.
• The superfast Antyodaya Express will soon be set up with unreserved, second class service.

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The finance minister said that a beginning has been made with regard to station redevelopment and at least 25 stations are expected to be awarded during 2017-18 for station redevelopment. It is proposed to feed about 7,000 stations with solar power in the medium term. A beginning has already been made in 300 stations. Works will be taken up for 2,000 railway stations as part of 1000 MW solar mission.

With so much efforts been put together to improve our transportation system. India is known to have the largest railway network in the world, hope with these developments we become worldclass.

About the Author: Tanmoy is from West Bengal currently doing private job in Manesar, Haryana. He did his Graduation in B.E. Production Engineering from PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh. His aim is to become an officer in Indian Army. His hobbies are gym and teaching and he wants to help the aspirants across the nation through this.