Railway Budget 2021: Indian Railways is seeking private investment of Rs 30,000 crore
Railway Budget 2021: On February 25, 2016, Suresh Prabhu became the last railway minister to present a Railway Budget - separately from the Union Budget. On February 1, 2017, Arun Jaitley became the first Finance Minister to present a combined railway and union budget. This marked the end of an era in railway budget-making in the country; with that, a 92-year-old long history of separate railway and union budgets came to an end. In 2015, the merger of the Union Budget with Railway Budget had its genesis in NITI Aayog as a committee headed by economist Bibek Debroy suggested disbanding the practice of having a separate Railway Budget.
Here's a summary of major railway announcements in the Union Budget since the merger of Railway Budget:
Budget 2017
In 2017, the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the first combined budget, which proved to be a watershed moment for Indian Railways. Mr Jaitley laid to rest the apprehensions that the combined budget will dilute the focus on the national transporter by announcing the largest allocation of Rs 1.3 lakh crore to Indian Railways in its history. In Budget 2017, the minister highlighted four major areas of passenger safety, capital and development works, cleanliness as well as finance and accounting reforms.
The finance minister, in an unprecedented move, also proposed the listing of railway subsidiaries, IRCTC, IRCON, as well as IRFC on the bourses. He announced the discontinuing of service charges for booking tickets through IRCTC. In a key initiative for ensuring passenger safety, he announced the creation of the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore spread over five years.
Budget 2018
In Budget 2018, the finance minister increased the outlay for Indian Railways to a record Rs 1.48 lakh crore. From the perspective of the railway authorities, Budget 2018 focused on capital expenditure. The capital outlay primarily catered to the capacity creation, including track renewal and doubling, gauge conversion as well as modernisation of 600 railway stations.
The government also announced the development of world-class trains, equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, such as Train 18 and Train 20. Technological initiatives such as passenger security, CCTVs across stations and trains, 'Fog Safe' and 'Train Protection and Warning System.' were also unveiled.
Budget 2019
In Budget 2019, Indian Railways received the highest ever outlay of Rs 1.6 lakh crore. Passenger safety received priority, with the establishment of the Nirbhaya Fund for an Integrated Emergency Response Management System (IERM). Railway Minister Piyush Goyal announced the downsizing of Railway Board from eight to five members, which would include the chairman, and members for operation, business development, infrastructure as well as finance. He also proposed the merger of eight services into one cadre viz. Indian Railway Service.
In 2015, the Bibek Debroy Committee on Indian Railways had recommended the restructuring of the Railway Board on the ground that the centralised structure and departmentalisation of the Railways adversely affected the work culture and narrowed its approach to department-specific goals.
