New Delhi, Jul 8 (PTI) : Railway minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday promised bullet trains on select sectors, but since these will require the cash-strapped Indian Railways to build completely new infrastucture, the government for now will tweak speeds of existing trains.
The first bullet train will run on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector, and the government has an ambitious plan to have a Diamond Quadrilateral network of high-speed rail connecting major metros and growth centres.
The railways will need Rs 60,000 crore to introduce just one bullet train, and Rs 900,000 crore for the Diamond Quadrilateral; the recent fare revision will fetch it only Rs 8,000 crore a year.
So, in the meantime, the speed of trains in nine selected sectors will be increased up to a maximum of 200km per hour; bullet trains run at speeds of 240-300km per hour.
The Rail Budget has identified nine sectors in which the speed of trains will be increased to 160-200kmph. These are: Delhi-Agra, Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Kanpur, Nagpur-Bilaspur, .
“It is the wish and dream of every Indian that India runs a bullet train as early as possible. Indian Railways is on its way to fulfil that long cherished dream,” Gowda said.
The railway budget also proposes to attract private domestic and foreign direct investment in infrastructure projects, and for private-public partnerships.
Traffic growth declined while expenditure went up in 2013-14 as compared to the revised estimates of previous financial year. Gross traffic receipts added up to Rs 1,39,558 crore, short of revised estimates by Rs 942 crore over the previous year.
But the railways had to maintain a total track length of 1.16 lakh km, and the 63,870 coaches and 2.4 lakh wagons that run on the track, and pay salaries to 13.1 lakh employees. Then there is fuel cost of the 12,617 trains that it runs every day, and the cost of looking after the 23 million carried daily across the nation.
The working expenses ate up Rs 1,30,321 crore, leaving it with an operating ratio of almost 94 per cent.
In plainspeak, of every Rs 100 that the Railways earned in 2013-14, it spent Rs 94 just to run itself, leaving very little to invest.
Total receipts for the current year have been pegged at Rs 1,64,374 crore and expenditure at Rs 1,49,176 crore.
“Can I depend only on hiking fare and freight rates and burden the public to realise these funds? This is unrealistic. I need to explore the alternate means of resource mobilisation,” Gowda said.
Proposing private investment in railways through domestic and FDI, Gowda said growth depends heavily on availability of funds for investment in rail infrastructure.
Internal revenue sources and government funding are insufficient to meet the requirement, the Railway Minister said, adding the ministry is seeking Cabinet approval for allowing FDI in rail sector.
FDI, however, will be limited to infrastructure development and not allowed in operations, he said.
Five Jansadharan trains are being introduced along with five premium trains, six AC express trains and 27 express trains and eight passenger trains.
The premium trains are between Mumbai Central and New Delhi, Shalimar-Chennai, Secundarabad-Hazrat Nizamuddin, Jaipur-Madurai and Kamakhya-Bangalore.
In order to strengthen security in trains and stations, the budget proposes to recruit 4000 women constables in the Railway Protection Force. Already 17000 RPF constables have been recruited and shall be available for deployment shortly.
