Railway Budget, 2011

For the third year in a row, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee made an attempt to come out with the “aam aadmi” budget sparing the passengers and industry from fare and freight hikes and announcing the highest ever investment of Rs 57,630 crore, with 68 new trains.
On February 25, 2011, presenting her third Railway Budget in UPA-II in the Lok Sabha, Mamata vowed to build a stronger railroad infrastructure based on the Vision 2020 document while announcing a slew of concessions, including reducing the eligibility age of senior women citizens from 60 to 58 years and raising the fare concession for senior citizens (above 60) from 30 to 40 per cent.
The budget estimates for 2011-12 project a freight loading of 993 million tonne and a passenger growth of 6.4 per cent. Ordinary working expenses have been estimated at Rs 73,650 crore and appropriation to depreciation reserve fund pegged at Rs 7,000 crore.
A provision of Rs 6,735 crore has been made for dividend payment and the excess for railways for the new fiscal has been projected at Rs 5,258 crore, with an operating ratio of 98.1 per cent.
Gross traffic receipts have been fixed at Rs 94,840 crore, which is higher by Rs 75 crore over budget estimates. The ordinary working expenses have been fixed at Rs 67,000 crore. A target of 1,300 km of new lines, 867 km of doubling of lines and 1,017 km of gauge conversion has been set.
Indian Railways, the world’s second largest under a single management, has a network of 64,099 km to ferry as many as 18.9 million passengers on 7,000 trains daily, from 6,906 stations. It also runs 4,000 freight trains to carry 850 million tonne of cargo.
Highlights

• No hike in passenger fare and freight rates.
• Highest ever plan outlay of Rs 57,630 crore proposed.
• Rs 9,583 crore provided for new lines.
• 1,300 km new lines, 867 km doubling of lines and 1,017 km gauge conversion targeted in 2011-12.
• 56 new Express Trains, 3 new Shatabdis and 9 Durontos to be introduced.
• 16,000 ex-servicemen to be given jobs in railways.
• Ten-year backlog of 1.75 lakh jobs to be addressed.
• Durontos on the Allahabad-Mumbai, Pune-Ahmedabad, Sealdah-Puri, Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam, Madurai-Chennai routes.
• Integrated suburban network to be set up in Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad.
• A bridge factory in Jammu & Kashmir and a state-of-art institute for tunnel and bridge engineering proposed at Jammu.
• New Shatabadi to link Ludhiana with New Delhi.
• New weekly train, "Vivek Express", on Bandra (T)-Jammu Tawi Express route via Marwar-Degana- Ratangarh -Jakhal-Ludhiana.
• Industrial park in Nandigram, Metro coach factory for Singur.
• Centre for excellence in software at Darjeeling.
• Concession for senior citizens increased from 30% to 40%.
• Age for senior women citizens’ concession reduced to 58 from 60.
• Pradhan Mantri Rail Vikas Yojana to be launched.
• Student special .trains to be started; start of Rajrani Express.
• Multi-purpose smart card to be introduced for all-India travel.