Railways Gets A Record Rs1.48 Trillion In Union Budget 2018

The Union budget has allocated a record Rs1.48 trillion for Indian Railways to raise its carrying capacity and improve the train travel experience.

Of this, Rs1.46 trillion is capital expenditure, while Rs2,028 crore is to reimburse operating losses on strategic lines and reimburse IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) for the operational cost of e-ticketing. In the last budget, finance minister Arun Jaitley had waived service charges on railway e-tickets to encourage cashless transactions. The charges waived were Rs40 for AC class and Rs20 for sleeper class.

In his budget speech on Thursday, the finance minister said a large part of the capital expenditure is for capacity creation, and mentioned different initiatives being taken. These include track doubling, and third and fourth line works of 18,000 km; 5,000 km of gauge conversion; redeveloping 600 railway stations, equipping them with Wi-Fi and CCTV cameras; introduction of modern train-sets; and escalators for stations with footfalls over 25,000. Read More…

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