Plan Outlay
The railway minister announced the highest-ever plan
outlay of Rs 63,363 crore for the public sector behemoth. Of this, Rs 14,260
crore would be raised from internal resources with Rs 26,000 crore budgetary
support. Other sources of financing include Rs.14,260 crore from railway's
internal resources and Rs.2,000 crore from railway's share in road safety fund.
There is also a plan to raise Rs.15,103 crore from the market and mobilize
Rs.6,000 crore through Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) route to fund its
expansion plans in 2013-14.
While tatkal charges for sleeper class have been
raised by Rs 15 to Rs 25 and for AC chair car from Rs 25 to Rs 50, tatkal
charges in AC-3 tier have been increased by Rs 50 and AC-2 tier and executive
class by Rs 100. The reservation fee for AC First and Executive classes has
been raised to Rs 60 from Rs 35 and that of First Class and AC-2 doubled to Rs
50. Reservation fee for AC chair car, AC-3 economy and AC-3 tier has been
increased to Rs 40 from Rs 25 and supplementary charges for superfast trains
raised between Rs 5 and Rs 25.
Growth Rate
It is creditable that an operating ratio of 88.8 per
cent is being achieved during the current year 2012-13, even after fully
repaying the loan of Rs 3,000 crore along with interest that was taken from the
Ministry of Finance, and after setting aside Rs. 9500 crore for Depreciation
Reserve Fund (DRF). Against this, the budget estimate for 2013-14 projects an
Operating Ratio (OR) of 87.8 per cent with a DRF appropriation of only Rs.7500
crore. This once again highlights the need for a more reliable index of
financial performance rather than the present OR, which can be tweaked to suit
by appropriately adjusting the DRF allocation. It is hoped that the proposed
revamping of the accounting system will look into this aspect.
The Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) component out of
this was projected as Rs. 2.5 lakh crore. It is rather distressing to note that
the 12th Five-Year Plan approved by the Planning Commission has scaled down the
Railway plan to Rs. 5.19 lakh crore with a GBS component of Rs. 1.94 lakh crore.
In other words, the government is not in a position
to provide for a much higher rate of growth of the railway sector than it has
historically done. The long-term implication of this modest growth rate on the
economy as a whole needs to be looked into.
Highlights
* No increase in passenger fares
* Rs.6,600 crore increase in
earnings from fare adjustment in January
* Rs.63,000 crore investment in 2013-14
* 1,047 million tons freight loading estimated during
2013-14
* Passenger earnings of Rs 42,000 crore estimated in
2013-14
* Indian Railways Institute of Financial Management
to be set up at Secunderabad
* Chair at Delhi
* 22 new lines to be taken up in 2013-14
* Superfast and Tatkal charges to rise
* 67 new Express trains to be introduced
* 27 new passenger trains; run of 58 trains to be
extended
* New debt service fund to be set up
* Six more Rail Neer bottling plants to be set up
* Losses mounted from Rs.22,500 crore in 2011-12 to
Rs.24,600 crore in 2012-13
* Planning Commission pegged 12th Five-Year Plan at
Rs.125.19 lakh crore
* Fall in accidents - per million accidents down from
.41 to .13
* Aim to eliminate 31,846 level crossings
* Will close fiscal 2012-13 with fund balance against
previous deficit; need to build fund balance to Rs.30,000 crore by end of 12th
Five-Year Plan
* Operating ratio of 88.8 percent achieved
* Dividend reduced from 5 to 4 percent
* Electrification of 1,200 km to be completed this
year
* 72 additional suburban services in Mumbai and 18 in
Kolkata
* Complementary passes of freedom fighters to be
renewed every three years instead of annually
* New wheel factory to be set up at Rae Bareli
* Greenfield EMU manufacturing facility at Bhilwara
* Railway energy management company to be set up to
harness solar and wind energy
* 1,000 crossings to be energized by solar power
* 1.51 lakh vacancies to be filled up
* Locomotive cabs to be air-conditioned
* Azadi Express to be introduced to travel to places
associated with freedom struggle
* India
* By end of 2013-14, 1,500 km of contracts to be
awarded for two dedicated rail corridors
* Rs.1 lakh crore target set for
public-private-partnership route
* Free Wi-Fi to be provided on some trains
* Rs.100 crore for improving stations in New Delhi
* 179 escalators and 400 lifts at A 1 and other
select stations
* E-ticketing through mobile phones
* SMS alerts for passengers on reservation status
* Next generation e-ticketing system by end of 2013
Assessment
The 2013-14
Budget has skirted the prickly issue of structural reforms. There is no mention
in the budget of even the proposal in the last budget to expand the Board to
include two members to look after PPP /Marketing and safety/research. The
proposal has perhaps been shelved.
Overall, the
budget conveys an impression of an exercise to keep the system going very much
as it has done in the past, at a modest growth rate. Whether such a rate of
growth of this key infrastructure sector will be sufficient to sustain the
projected growth rates of the economy as a whole remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, it is a matter of pride that the
Indian Railways has joined the select club of world railways moving more than a
billion tons of freight annually, and is entering into yet another exclusive
group of railways moving more than 10,000 tons per train. Some concomitant
steps that should improve maintainability, reduce maintenance costs and improve
staff productivity such as widespread introduction of track
friendly/self-steering bogies and doing away with the anachronistic institution
of goods guards, have not been explicitly mentioned in the budget. Hopefully,
these and other steps will be implemented.
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