In Brief about Railway Budget 2016 – No fare Hikes

The awaited Railway budget for 2016-2017 is finally out. The biggest news coming out of the new budget is that there is no increase in tariffs. While, it announces the launch of three superfast trains and establishment of dedicated east-west, north-south and east coast freight corridors by the year 2019.

The Union Railway Budget 2016-2017 focused on facility formation in the rail sector, with an enlarged expense of about Rs. 1.21 lakh crore, and that too on the completion of the projects that are already going on rather than discovering new projects. However, Passenger’s fare remained the same.

While offering his second budget in the Lok Sabha, Suresh Prabhu assured rationalizing of the excise formation by reviewing to evolve competitive rates in relation to other modes of transport and to increase the freight case as a means of added revenue enlistment.

The three newly launching superfast trains include “Humsafar” which will be a completely air conditioned 3AC service provider. It will also be encountering special attention on the option of meals. Another train “Tejas” will be representing the future of train travel in India as it will be including the facilities like WiFi, entertainment, speed up to 130 km per hour and other onboard services. Both the trains will guarantee cost revival through tariff as well as non-tariff measures. At the same time, the “Uday” will be an overnight double-decker air-conditioned train running on the busiest routes. It will be running along with a superfast ‘Antyodya’.

Another train with the name ‘Deen Dayal’ with the highest number of charging sockets and portable water sources will be introduced according to 2016-2017 railway budgets.

After taking into consideration all the amendments and the upcoming projects to be introduced in railway, the Minister has eventually set the plan to Rs. 1.21 lakh crore.

However,there are some specific highlights of the Railway budget that obviously need to be paid attention to:

• Keeping the women security in mind, this year’s budget has involved an increase in the reservation of lower berths for women and the senior citizens.
• If the passengers are unsatisfied with the toilet services, they can ask for cleaning or related services through a single SMS.
• There is a resolution to eradicate all the unmanned level crossings by 2020.
• Railway budget promises to introduce WiFi at 100 stations in this year and at 400 stations in the upcoming year.
• To overcome the threat of ticketless travelers, there will be the introduction of tickets with a barcode.
• There will be the setting of GPS based displays in several coaches informing about the upcoming stations.
• Helpline number 139 will be facilitating in cancelling the tickets.