Railway Budget special:

Railway Budget special:

Theme of the Budget

• Overcoming challenges – Reorganize, Restructure Rejuvenate Indian Railways: ‘Chalo, Milkar Kuch Naya Karen’
• Three pillars of the strategy i.e. Nav Arjan – New revenues, Nav Manak – New norms, Nav Sanrachna – New Structures. 

Four new categories of trains announced
Four new categories of trains have been announced in the budget— one for unreserved passengers and three for reserved passengers.
The four new categories of trains are- Humsafar, Tejas, Antyodaya Express and Uday.

1. Humsafar would be fully air-conditioned third AC service with an optional service for meals.
2. Tejas on the other hand will showcase the future of train travel in India. Operating at speeds of 130 kmph or more, it will have on-board services such as entertainment, local cuisine, Wi-Fi etc.
3. Utkrisht Double-Decker Air-conditioned Yatri (UDAY) Express will be introduced on the busiest routes, which has the potential to increase carrying capacity by almost 40%.
4. Antyodaya Express is a long-distance, fully unreserved, super-fast train service, for the common man to be operated on dense routes.

The railway minister has also announced that two to four Deen Dayalu coaches would be added in some long distance trains for unreserved travel. These coaches will also have facility for potable drinking water and a higher number of mobile charging points.
Seven missions to improve functioning
To make the functioning of railways more efficient, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has announced seven missions, including activities to increase the average speed of superfast mail trains by 25 kilometres per hour in the next five years.
The seven missions are ’25 Tonne’, ‘Zero Accident’, PACE (Procurement and Consumption Efficiency), ‘Raftaar’, ‘Hundred’, ‘beyond book-keeping’ and ‘capacity utilisation’.

• Under Mission Raftaar, the railways would target doubling average speeds of freight trains and increasing the average speed of superfast mail/express trains by 25 kmph in the next 5 years.
• On Mission 25 Tonne, railways will augment the carrying capacity to realise the goal of revenue enhancement. A critical step in that direction is making our infrastructure suitable to carry 25-tonne axle load. It is proposed to introduce 10-20% freight loading through 25-tonne axle-load wagons in 2016-17 and target movement of 70% of freight traffic on high axle load wagons by FY 19-20.
• Among others, Mission Hundred would focus on sidings and freight terminals.
• Under ‘Beyond Book-keeping’, Indian Railways will establish an accounting system where the outcomes can be tracked to inputs.

Each of the missions would be headed by a director reporting directly to the Railway Board Chairman.
Three freight corridors to be built on priority
The country will get three new dedicated freight corridors, according to the Railway Budget 2016, in addition to the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata freight corridors that are due to be commissioned in 2019.

• The new projects are a North-South corridor, from Delhi to Chennai, an East-West corridor from Karaghpur to Mumbai and an East Coast corridor, from Karaghpur to Vijayawada.
• These projects will be financed through a PPP (public private partnership) mechanism and rolled out on a high priority basis.