Rail Budget 2013 is all set to present in House of Parliament and now wait is of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal’s proposals whether theses are budget friendly or not.
Today is the most important day for Bansal as well as Congress as this is for first time in 17 years that a Railway Budget is going to table by Congress minister.
Sources indicated that pressure of hiking passenger fares as well as freight fare is likely to go through again with the hike in fuel price. Bansal has discussed the pros and corn of rail fare hike with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and the Planning Commission and hoped to come up with friendly measures.
A 24X7 , round-the-clock toll-free helpline for women that will be tracked on real-time basis , the one and best in his maiden Rail Budget with top priority for women’ security. Latest and significant measure in he Rail Budget 2013-14 is of High-speed self-propelled accident relief trains (SPART) that are set to introduce by Railway Ministry.
In Rail Budget agenda of Bansal, expectations are of much improvement in catering service, extension and increase of popular passenger services, well clean rail premises and introduction of new stations, reports said.
Around 100 new trains such as AC double deckers and an additional Rajdhani between Delhi-Mumbai routes are also listed in Bansal’s agenda for Railways.
Aiming to facilitate more passenger amenities cess, Bansal will introduce a tool for Fuel Adjustment as essential measure to earn more revenue to bear the loss of about Rs 25,000 crore in the passenger segment.
Meanwhile, hopes are more from UPA government with good measures as General Elections are close to be rounded and Congress is not inclined towards effecting another round of fare hike.
