Railway Budget-2015

Railway Budget-2015

• The budget speech did not contain any major announcements. 

  • There was no reading out of a laundry list of new trains. “That can be done later during the session," he said in a TV interview. 
  •  Here are announcements from his speech: 
  • Passenger fares were not increased.4.2 % passenger fares and 6.5 % freight costs levied last year.
  • vending machines about to introduce  to dispense tickets.
  • select trains will have 26 coaches instead of the current 24. 
  • Operation Five Minutes:- payments through debit and credit cards are introduced. 
  •  Wifi connectivity for all A1 category stations
  • Wifi expanded within the year to B-category stations as well. 
  •  970 bridges or under-passes will be build. 
  • There are over 13,500 unmanned crossings around the country.
  • Rs 6,581 crore to remove 3,438 out of 13,500 unmanned railways crossings.
  •  The best-ever operating ratio achieved by the railways was 74.7 percent in 1963-64. 
  • Railways efficiency, was 91.8 percent.
  • Target of 88.5 percent for the next.
  • The railways will spend 90 paise and retain 10 paise as surplus from every Re 1. 
  • Investment of Rs 8.50 lakh crore is expected over the next five years.
  • Low-cost pension funds and raise long term debt from domestic and overseas sources.
  • Rajdhani express that can do 130 km/hr runs at an average speed of 70 km/hr.
  •  Speeds of trains in nine rail corridors will go up to 160-200 km/hr from present 120-130 km/hr.
  •   Freight rate hiked by 10 percent for urea, 6 percent for coal and 2.7 percent for cement.
  •  Track capacity hiked to 1,38,000 kms from the existing 1,14,000 kms. 
  •  17,000 bio-toilets will replace existing facilities across stations.
  •  railway land  encroachment by digitizing records.
  •  railway-owned land of 2,337 acres. 
  •   First installation of 1,000 MW of solar power.
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