Rail Minister D V Sadananda Gowda presents his maiden railway budget on Tuesday. Here are the main highlights of Railway budget 2014:
- Govt proposes internet and workstation, Office-on-Wheels facilities on select trains.
Reservation System To Be Revamped
- Future e-Ticketing to support 7200 tickets per minute and to allow 1.2 lakh simultaneous users.
- Reservation system will be revamped and ticket-booking through mobile phones and post offices popularised.
- Digital Reservation Charts at stations
- Wi-Fi in A-1 and A category stations and in select trains.
- Setting up of Railway University for both technical and non-technical study. Tie-up with major technical institutions.
- Railway Minister announces GIS Mapping and digitisation of Railway Land.
- Govt proposes to set up Food Courts at major stations.
- Indian Railway spend 94 paisa of every rupee earned, leaving a surplus of only 6 paisa.
- Separate housekeeping wing at 50 major stations.
- CCTV to monitor cleanliness activities.
More Safety for Women Passengers
- 4,000 new women constables to be recruited to ensure safety of women. 17,000 RPF constables to provide safety to passengers.
- Ladies’ coaches to be escorted by women RPF constables; additional care for ladies travelling alone:Gowda announces
- Decision to launch diamond quadrilateral of high speed trains.
- The Indian Railways carry 23 million passengers a day, equivalent to moving Australia’s total population
- Over 1 billion tonnes of freight every year. Target to become the largest freight carrier of the world.
- Proposal to start Bullet trains in Mumbai—Ahmedabad route. Speed of select trains will be also raised from160km to 200km.
- 27 Express trains to be introduced. 5 Jansadharan , 5 Premium AC trains to be added.
- Recent fare revision to net Rs 8,000 cr to Railways.
- All future projects to be financed on public-private partnership model.
- New tourist trains to be introduced to link all the major tourist places.
- A new technology called Ultrasonic system to added to detect problems in track.
- Train connectivity to Char Dham.