Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday announced creation of a Railway Safety Fund of Rs one lakh crore over a period of five years. The Finance Minister spelt out the four main focus areas for the Railways in the budget as being “passenger safety, capital and development works, cleanliness, and finance and accounting reforms.”
“A Railway Surksha Kosh (Rail Safety Fund) with a corpus of Rs 1,00,000 crore to be created over a period of five years,” Jaitley said while presenting the Union Budget 2017-18, which for the first time in 93 years merged the erstwhile Railway Budget with the General Budget.
The total capital and development expenditure on the Indian Railways during the next fiscal has been pegged at Rs 1,31,000 crore, with little less than half to be provided by the government, Jaitley said.
“For 2017-18, the total capital and development expenditure of Railways has been pegged at Rs 1,31,000 crore. This includes Rs 55,000 crore provided by the government,” Jaitley said presenting the Union Budget 2017-18.
“This decision (to merge budgets) brings the Railways to the centrestage of the government’s fiscal policy and would facilitate multi-modal transport planning between railways, highways and inland waterways,” he said.
“The functional autonomy of the Railways will, however, continue,” he added.
The Finance Minister said that Railways will eliminate all the unmanned level crossings by 2020.
Emphasising on Clean India, Jaitley said, “A SMS-based service named ‘Clean My Coach’ has been started by the Railways. And all the trains would be fitted with bio-toilets by 2019.”
The Finance Minister also announced to waive service charges on Railway e-tickets booked through IRCTC.
“Steps will be taken to launch dedicated trains for pilgrimage and tourism,” Jaitley said, adding that the railways will develop 25 selected stations while over 500 railway stations would be made disabled-friendly with elevators, escalators.
“About 3,500 km of railway track would be laid down in this financial year,” Jaitley said.As part of accounting reforms, accrual based financial statements will be rolled out by March 2019, he added.
Jaitley also said dedicated trains would be launched for pilgrimage and tourism travel.
Moreover, a new Metro Rail policy will be announced, which is expected to open up new jobs for the youths.