Lalu's fifth Rail Budget right on track

Indian Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav will present the new Railway Budget for the next fiscal year today. Today’s budget session is currently running from 11 a.m. while Lalu Prasad will present his fifth railway budget after ending the discussion and question-answers session. This will also be the fifth railway budget of UPA government in a row.

•   E-mail Article
•   Printer Friendly
•   Text-Size    

Today’s railway budget will be very crucial for the UPA government and also for the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav because this is the last budget of this government and people and expertise are expecting some surprising announcement in this election budget. This budget might play a vital role in the next election and also increase or decrease the ‘Aam Adami’ image of Lalu depending upon the nature of the budget.

In his last four budgets, Lalu Prasad Yadav has shown the finance experts that without hiking the fare, massive margins can be gain. Though, this year, the financial experts are expecting to some increment in basic layer of passengers fare because Railways have to repay the debt of World Bank loan. However, expertises also believe to not to hike the price in the freight fare to meet the competition to Road freight.

This year Railways has gained 728 million tones of cargo load as against 492 million tones in 2001-2002. However, in the proportion of Road transport, its share has been dipped to 21.01 percent from 24.07 percent.

On the other hand, Road transport sector has seen the surge from 1553 million tonnes to 2735 million tonnes marking 78 percent of share in the total freight for the same fiscal. “Lalu Yadav will have to make a special pay attention towards it”, experts advised.

While in the interaction to the media, before entering in the Parliament, Lalu Prasad has said, “You media people are too late with all your suggestions - my budget is already prepared and printed and sealed. I cannot change anything now.”

However, he shared his experience with the media persons during exercising the budget. “There are 14 lakh employees of the Railways, plus 13 lakh pensioners with millions of people indirectly depending upon the railways ….we have to consider all sections.” So, he indicated that this year’s budget might be some surprising announcement in which some untouched areas of the railways may come in the limelight.

People’s expectation

The ordinary public is usually expecting to get some relief in extra levied surcharges in the name of facilities like the fare difference between on-season and off-season tickets and many more. However, they are also expecting to get some pinch from the Railway ministry because there was no price hike in the general class and in the Sleeper class ticket. Lalu, on the other hand had reduced Re1 in the passengers ticket for the daily travellers.

According to estimated data, Railway has gained Rs.23,000 crore in current fiscal while it was Rs.20,000 crore in the last fiscal. From the passengers fare, Railways has earned the revenue of 14% more in the comparison of last year’s while in the freight sector, Railways has made 11% more for the same period.

The general people are expecting to get some concession in the students, sportspersons, senior citizens and women’s category fare. The people are also expecting to get more facilities in the railway especially in the catering and security department. This is the section, where Railways could not mark any landmark so far.

Industrialist’s anticipation

According to Industrialists and businesspersons, ‘this budget must be focused on the efficiency, and rationalise fare and freight structures’ because the Railways freight always attached with inflation.

The hiking price of crude oil is also be a crucial factor in the railways budget and might put huge pressure on the Railway Ministry to hike the prices, as market experts believe.

Experts also think that Railways should fully capitalize the unused land of the Railways which is under occupation of several mafia and destitute and must also pay attention towards speedy railways lines and more corridors facilities for the goods carrier railway to meet the target and to beat the Road transport sectors.

Indian railways are the third largest railways networks in the world in which more than 10 millions of passengers travel daily in more than 11,000 passenger carrier trains.