Prabhu Announces New Trains, Boost For Unreserved Travel

Sticking to his promise of 'innovative solutions', Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu in his Rail Budget speech announced many new trains which will cater to the growing demand for services.

Prabhu announced new trains and addition of coaches. These new facilities are aimed specially for unreserved travel.

> Will introduce Antyodaya Express, a long-distance, unreserved, superfast train service, for the common man, to be operated on dense routes

> Will also add two to four Dayalu coaches in some long distance trains for unreserved travel with facility for potable drinking water and a higher number of mobile charging points.

> Introduced Humsafar Express - full air-conditioned third AC service with an operational services for meals

> Introduced Tejas - will showcase the future of train travel in India with operating speeds of 130kmph and above plus world-class on board services

> Prabhu announced introduction of Utkrisht double-decker air-conditioned Yatri (Uday) Express with increased carrying capacity of almost 40%

Looking to make the online ticketing system a robust one, Prabhu said, "We have enhanced capacity of e-ticketing system from 2000 tickets/min to 7,200/min." "We are now supporting 1.2 lakh concurrent users now, as opposed to 40,000 earlier," he added.

"There is no barrier today between a common passenger and Indian Railways," Prabhu said citing outreach to improve customer services.

With an aim to up connectivity, Prabhu proposed to connect North-Eastern states via broad-gauge. "We will connect North-eastern states of Misoram, Tripura via broad-gauge," Prabhu said.

ET

Prabhu’s Passenger Friendly Initiatives In Rail Budget 2016

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday presented the Rail Budget 2016 in the Lok Sabha. Here are some of the important passenger-friendly measures announced by Prabhu in Rail Budget 2106.
1. GPS-based displays inside coaches, "rail speed network" to provide real time info to passengers.
2. 20,000 display screens across 2,000 station for better dissemination of information to passengers.
3. Children's menu, baby foods, baby boards to be made available for travelling mothers.
4. Sub-quota of 33 percent in for women in each reserved category.
5. IRCTC will start e-catering service, local cuisine of choice will be made available to the passengers.
6. Under 'Clean My Coach' service, passengers can request for cleaning of toilets in train through SMS.
7. Introduction of bar-coded tickets.
8. Enhanced capacity of eticketing system from 2000 tickets/minute to 7,200/minute.
9. Introduction of Wi-Fi services at 100 stations this year, 400 more stations over next two years.
10. Increased quota of lower berths for senior citizens and women passengers.
11. 1,780 automatic ticket vending machines to be installed.
12. All stations will be brought under CCTV surveillance.
13. Dustbins to be placed in all non-AC coaches.

10 Numbers to Track in Suresh Prabhu's Second Rail Budget

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is presenting his second rail budget. He is expected to outline concrete measures to bolster railways' finance at a time when revenue collection is under stress, while demand for funds for modernization and improving passenger facilities is on the rise.

Here are 10 numbers to understand the rail budget:
1) 88.5 per cent is the operating ratio railways is targeting for 2015-16 fiscal year. In simple terms, it means that the railways wants to spend 88.5 paise for each rupee of revenue. If railways achieves this target, it will be its best performance in nine years.
2) Rs. 1.20 lakh crore is the amount railways is likely to commit for capital expenditure this year. Last year, the plan size was nearly Rs. 1 lakh crore.
3) Rs. 8.5 lakh crore: This is the amount railways wants to spend in five years for its modernization of its infrastructure. To meet the five year target, investments have to speed up.
4) Rs. 28,450 crore is the amount of money railways needs to implement salary hike recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission for 2.6 million railway employees and pensioners.
5) Rs. 40,000 crore is what the railways is likely to get from the central government as budgetary support.
6) Rs. 30,000 crore is the amount of losses railways is likely incur this year on subsidizing passenger fares. Train fares are cross-subsidized by freight fares.
7) 23 million is the number of passengers railways carry every day. That's equivalent to moving the entire population of the Australia in a day. The railways runs 21,000 passenger and freight trains per day connecting over 7,000 stations across the country.
8) 67 per cent is the contribution of freight in railways earnings. The share of freight carried by railways among total freight carried by all means has declined from nearly 90 per cent in 1950-51 to just around 30 per cent because successive governments have cross-subsidized passenger fares with freight fares. Passenger fares contribute just 26 per cent to earnings.
9) 200 km is the average number of kilometers added per year to rail route since independence. In the last 67 years, just 13,000 kilometers of rail route has been added for a total route of 64,460 kilometers, which is the fourth-largest in the world, but much lower than China's over 1 lakh kilometers.
10) 13.1 lakh is the number of people railways employs making it the country's single biggest employer.

Source: NDTV Profit