Indian Railway Budget Highlights 2011

Yesterday (25th Feb 2011) Railway minister of India Ms Mamta Banergee Presented Railway Budget in Indian Parliament House for the Year 2011. Railway Declared 2011-12 as a "Year Of Green Energy".Some of the Highlights are:-

COMMON PEOPLE

# No increase in passenger fares and freight rates in FY 2011/12.

# New Express Trains, 3 new Shatabdis and 9 Duronto trains to be introduced.

# AC Double Decker services on Jaipur-Delhi and Ahmedabad-Mumbai routes.

# New Super AC Class to be introduced.

# A new portal for e-ticketing to be launched shortly.

# Booking charges will be cheaper with a charge of only Rs 10 for AC classes and Rs 5 for others.

# Pan-India multi-purpose smart card 'Go India' to be introduced.

# 236 more stations to be upgraded as Adarsh Stations.

# 47 additional suburban services in Mumbai and 50 new suburban services proposed for Kolkata.

# Two new passenger terminals in Kerala and one each in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal proposed.

# Feasibility study to raise speed of passenger trains to 160-200 kmph to be undertaken.

# A special package of two new trains and two projects for the states managing trouble free run of trains through out the year.

# Anti Collision Devise (ACD) sanctioned to cover 8 zonal railways.

# GPS Based 'Fog Safe' Device to be deployed.

# All unmanned level crossing up to 3000 to be eliminated.

# All India Security Help line on a single number set up.

NEW TRAINS

#New Janambhoomi trains Between Ahmedabad and Udhampur

# Krambhoomi Train for working class specially for Migrents.

# Bharat thirth train to be launched on Rabindranath Tagore's 150th Birth day Anniversary 

# Matribhumi Special Trains for Women

SOCIAL INITIATIVE

# A scheme for socially desirable projects, 'Pradhan Mantri Rail Vikas Yojana' with non-lapsable fund proposed.

# 10,000 shelter units proposed for track side dwellers in Mumbai, Sealdah, Siliguri, Tiruchirapalli on pilot basis.

# Concession to physically handicapped persons to be extended on Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.

# Concession of 50 per cent to press correspondents with family increased to twice a year.

# Senior Citizens concession to be hiked from 30 per cent to 40 per cent.

# Medical facilities extended to dependent parents of the Railway employees.

# Scholarship for girl child of Group-D railway employees increased to Rs 1200 per month.

# 20 additional hostels for children of railway employees to be set up.

# Recruitment for 1.75 lakh vacancies of Group 'C' and 'D' including to fill up backlog of SC/ST initiated, 16,000 ex-servicemen to be inducted by March 2011.

# Free Journey for cancer patient in Sleeper and 3rd a/c & 75% concession for companion.

FACTS & FIGURE

# Gross traffic receipts estimated at 1.06 trillion rupees ($23.4 billion) in FY 2011/12

# Passenger numbers estimated to grow by 6.4 percent in coming financial year.

# Freight traffic estimated at 993 million tonnes in the coming financial year.

# Fresh investment of 576.3 billion rupees ($12.68 billion) into Indian Railways in the FY 2011/12.

INVESTMENT

# The government to provide 200 billion rupees ($4.4 billion) to Indian Railways in coming FY.

# Total amount of borrowing by Indian Railways Finance Corporation (IRFC) estimated at 204.54 billion rupees ($4.5 billion) in FY 2011/12

# Tax-free bonds totalling 100 billion rupees ($2.2 billion) to be issued by IRFC in the coming financial year.

#Railways development bank Rail Vikas Nigam Limited to borrow 1.4 billion rupees ($30.9 million) in coming financial year.

#Total public-private partnership investments estimated at 15.26 billion rupees ($336.5 million) in FY 2011/12.

INFRASTRUCTURE

# 1,300 kilometres (808 miles) of new rail lines to be added in FY 2011/12.

# 18,000 new wagons to be purchased.

# Two wagon units to be set up in conjunction with private partners.

# 700 megawatt gas-based captive power plant to be set up.

# A Bridge Factory in Jammu and Kashmir and a state-of-art Institute for Tunnel and Bridge Engineering is proposed at Jammu.

# A Diesel Locomotive Centre will be set-up in Manipur.

#A Centre of Excellence in Software at Darjeeling proposed under the aegis of CRIS.

# Rail Industrial Parks at Jellingham and New Bongaigaon proposed.

# Additional mechanised laundry units to be set up at Nagpur, Chandigarh and Bhopal.