No hike in train fares; Prabhu promises better facilities

Presenting the Railway Budget 2016-17 in Parliament today railway minister Suresh  Prabhakar Prabhu proposed no hike in passenger fares and instead stated the budget would address the long-felt needs of the common man such as reserved accommodation on demand, time-tabled freight trains and better safety and speed.

He said the Railways will use high-end technology to improve safety, eliminate all unmanned level crossings, improve punctuality and average speed of freight trains, semi high-speed trains running along the golden quadrilateral and ensuring zero direct discharge of human waste by the year 2020.

He said the union cabinet has approved plan for re-development of railway stations under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

Prabhu said the railways budget is an attempt to overcome the challenges by reorganising, restructuring and rejuvenating Indian Railways with the slogan Chalo, Milkar Kuch Naya Karen.

The strategy for this will have three pillars - Nav Arjan (new revenues), Nav Manak (new norms) and Nav Sanrachna (new structures).

In order to make travel more comfortable, the Indian Railways proposes to give more facilities to the passengers. Railways will provide 65,000 additional berths in trains and install 2,500 water vending machines.

The railways has developed world's first bio-vaccum toilet and 17,000 bio-toilets will be provided in the trains.

The railways will be introducing operations audit of trains, initially from Ghaziabad to Mughalsarai section, with the purpose of improving punctuality of trains.

It proposes to introduce 1,780 automatic ticket vending machines all over the country with mobile apps and `GoIndia' smartcard for cashless purchase of UTS and PRS tickets. The capacity of e-ticketing system will be enhanced from 2,000 tickets per minute to 7,200 tickets per minute to support 1,20,000 concurrent users as against 40,000 earlier. Railways will provide Wi Fi facility at 400 more stations.

As a part of social initiatives, online booking of wheelchairs and braille enabled new coaches will be introduced for the `Divyang'.

It is proposed to increase quota of lower berths for senior citizens and women and reserving  middle bays for women in reserved coaches. Passengers' security will be enhanced through more helplines and CCTVs.

To reduce accidents at level crossings, the budget proposes to eliminate 1,000 unmanned level crossings and closures of 350 manned level crossings. It is planned to complete 820 rail over bridges (ROB) / rail under bridges (RUB) during the current financial year and work is going on in additional 1,350 of them.

Improving connectivity
Referring to the progress of Dedicated Freight Corridor Project, the railway minister said that almost all contracts for civil engineering works will be awarded by the end of this financial year.

He said Rs24,000 crore worth of contracts were awarded since November 2014 as against Rs13,000 crore contracts awarded during the last six years. Prabhu said Railways proposes to take up North-South, East-West and East Coast freight corridors through innovative financing, including PPP.

Underlining the importance of Jammu and Kashmir and North East the minister said work on Katra-Banihal section of Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link Project is progressing satisfactorily and 35 km of tunnelling out of total of 95km has been completed.

He said decongestion work on Jalandhar-Jammu section is in full swing and doubling of two bridges will be over by next month, while the other two bridges will be completed by 2016-17. In North East, Mizoram and Manipur will shortly come on BG map of the country with commissioning of the Kathakal-Bhairabi and Arunachal-Jiribam gauge conversion projects.

Giving the progress card of port connectivity projects the minister informed that the Tuna Port connectivity project has been commissioned and rail connectivity projects to ports of Jaigarh, Dighi, Rewas and Paradip are under implementation. He said implementation of rail connectivity for the ports of Nargol and Hazira will be taken up under PPP in 2016-17.

Outlining the way ahead, the minister said his ministry proposes to take various measures to improve quality of travel, which will include introduction of unreserved superfast Antyodaya Express Trains, introduction of Tezas train with the speed of 130 Km and above with onboard entertainment and Wi Fi etc, unreserved Deen Dayalu coaches with portable water and higher number of mobile charging points and introduction of AC and non-AC double decker trains on busy routes with the potential to  increase carrying capacity by almost 40 per cent.

Prabhu also proposed to convert all operational halts into commercial halts for the benefit of common man. The minister said Sarathi Seva in Konkan Railway will be expanding to help the old and disabled passenger.

The existing services for enabling passengers to book battery operated cars, porter services, etc on a paid basis in addition to the existing pick-up and drop, and wheel chair services will be strengthened.

All stations under redevelopment will be accessible for Divyang. There will be at least one Divyang friendly toilet at each platform in A1 class stations during the next financial year and availability of wheelchairs in sufficient numbers at these stations will be ensured. Children's menu items, baby foods, hot milk and hot water would be made available under Janani Sewa.

SMART (Specially Modified Aesthetic Refreshing Travel) coaches will be introduced to ensure higher carrying capacity and provision of new amenities, including automatic doors, bar-code readers, bio-vacuum toilets, water-level indicators, accessible dustbins, ergonomic seating, improved aesthetics, vending machines, entertainment screens, LED lit boards for advertising, PA system.

Customer care
It is also proposed to integrate all facilities into two mobile apps dealing with ticketing issues and for receipt and redressal of complaints and suggestions. With a view to improve customer interface information boards in trains enumerating the on-board services and  GPS based digital displays will be installed  inside coaches to provide real time information regarding upcoming halts.

Work is underway for the installation of a high-tech centralised network of 20,000 screens across 2,000 stations for enabling real time flow of information to passengers and also to unlock huge advertising potential. All A1 class stations will be manned with duly empowered station directors supported by cross functional teams, to make one person accountable for all facilities on trains.

Prabhu proposed to take up on priority the provision of passenger amenities and beautification on stations at pilgrimage centres, including Ajmer, Amritsar, Bihar Sharif, Chengannur, Dwarka, Gaya, Haridwar, Mathura, Nagapattinam, Nanded, Nasik, Pali, Parasnath, Puri, Tirupati, Vailankanni, Varanasi and Vasco. Aastha circuit trains will be introduced to connect important pilgrim centres.

He said optional travel insurance for rail journeys at the time of booking and `clean my coach' through SMS will also be introduced in due course. High speed passenger corridor from Ahmedabad to Mumbai will be developed with the financial assistance from the Japanese government.

FM radio stations will be invited to provide train borne entertainment, Rail Bandhu mazagine  will be provided in all reserved coaches in all regional languages.