Highlights from Railway Budget 2014-15

Union Railway Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda presented his first Railway Budget in Parliament. Below are the highlights of this Budget:

  • No new hike in passenger fares and freight charges
  • Bullet train in Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector
  • Diamond quadrilateral for high speed trains
  • Proposal to enhance speed of trains to 160-200 km/hr in 9 sectors
  • Online booking to support 7,200 tickets/minute; to enable 1.2 lakh users log in simultaneously
  • Revamp of reservation system, ticket-booking through mobile phones, post offices to be promoted
  • Online platform for unreserved tickets
  • Stations to have Combo parking-platform tickets
  • Women RPF Constables to escort ladies coaches; 4,000 women constables to be inducted
  • Retiring room facility to be extended to all stations
  • Battery powered Cars for differently-abled and senior citizens at major stations
  • Feedback services through IVRS on quality of food
  • Food can be ordered through SMS, phone; Food courts at major stations
  • Cleanliness budget increased by 40% over last year
  • CCTVs to be used at stations for monitoring cleanliness
  • Forming a corpus fund for stations’ maintenance
  • RO drinking water at some stations and trains
  • Automatic door closing in mainline and sub-urban coaches
  • 58 new trains and extension of 11; 864 additional EMUs to be started in Mumbai over 2 years
  • FDI in railway projects, except in operations
  • FDI, domestic investments in rail infrastructure
  • Office-on-Wheels: Internet & workstation amenities on select trains
  • WiFi in A1, A category stations and in select trains
  • Railways university for technical and non-technical subjects
  • Some stations to be built to international standards through PPP model
  • Parcel traffic to be segregated to separate terminals to make passenger traffic unhampered
  • Loss per passenger per kilometre up from 10% in 2000-01 to 23% in 2012-13
  • Use of Solar energy at major stations
  • Highest ever plan outlay of Rs. 65,455 crore for 2014-15
  • Expenditure in 2014-15 pegged at Rs. 149,176 crore.

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