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Railways Minister SpeechSir, freight revenue constitutes two-thirds of our total revenues. In order to regain the freight market share which Railways have lost in recent decades and to take it to the level of 50% in the current decade, I propose to initiate various measures in the next year. Some of the major steps proposed to be taken are :-
A comprehensive delegation of powers to the Zonal and Divisional Railways has been undertaken in order to sharpen our interface with the customers. General Managers have been authorised to devise appropriate marketing strategies at local level to capture additional freight traffic.
A 'Congested Route Development Charge' for those routes on Indian Railways which have become heavily saturated is being introduced to enable Indian Railways to plan traffic facility works to remove the bottlenecks.
Volume Discount Scheme is being continued for the third consecutive year.
Special lumpsum rates for movement in Merry-Go-Round (MGR) circuits over short stretches have been developed for attracting bulk movement of coal and minerals at pit-head Power Houses/Mines. This package will target short-lead bulk traffic for rail movement.
Roll-on-Roll-off (RORO) packages which had been experimented on the Konkan Railway are now being extended to Ahmedabad-Nabha and Chennai-Sankrail (Kolkata) circuits.
Surplus railway land at stations and more than 1,500 unutilised Goods Sheds at roadside stations are being offered for development of warehousing capacity and, thereby generate additional traffic on the railways on the one hand and supplement revenues on the other.
We want to modernise our freight operations by using the state of the art technology for real time monitoring. In this direction, project for computerised monitoring of Freight Operations (FOIS) is expected to cover the entire network of Indian Railways by June 2001.
Passenger Amenities
I plan to give a major thrust to improvement in the passenger amenities at the Stations. I am happy to announce that the outlay for Passenger Amenities will be further increased by 39% over the revised estimate to cover many new areas of improvement. Following steps are being initiated for this purpose:-
- Ticket refunds are being fully computerised on all zonal Railways.
- Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) are being installed at various important stations and will be later used for issue of tickets also.
- For providing quicker information to public, on-line train running position will be available through Cable TV / Internet and on Cellular Phones by connecting National Train Enquiry System to these systems.
- To reduce congestion on ticket counters, proposal to use internet kiosks for ticket retailing is under consideration.
- Computerised information on reservation availability status and train movement status will be available on all A class stations.
- In our Customer Care Institute, various training programmes have been initiated to train the front-line staff for better customer service.
- Top priority would be accorded to provision of drinking water, platform shelters, increasing the length of the platform to accommodate longest train, raising the platform heights and ensure adequate seating arrangements.
- To improve sanitation at stations, a large number of 'Pay and Use' toilets will be provided and mechanised cleaning will be undertaken.
- We have undertaken a large-scale exercise in modernisation of customer service by bringing up more and more stations as model stations. 210 stations have already been selected. I now propose to develop another 74 stations as model stations in the next year.
- Sir, as a major step to provide access to computerised reservation facility, I have decided to include another 71 locations throughout the country within the ambit of computerised Passenger Reservation System (PRS). Hon'ble Members are aware that PRS facility is already available at 670 locations in the country.
- In order to improve the quality of service in long distance trains and to provide better amenities to the travelling public, certain amenities on the lines of Rajdhani Express trains have been introduced on 30 trains.
Railways have formulated a New Catering Policy with a view to introducing a transparent system of award of licences through competitive bidding in case of major catering units. The policy also provides for 25% reservation at the discretion of the General Managers, to the various disadvantaged categories in the allotment of catering licences of small catering units.
Indian Railways have initiated a number of steps to expand the scope of catering services both at stations and in trains.
Health
Sir, I am happy to announce that to facilitate prompt medical attention to the needy passengers, a computerised database containing the locations and details of non-railway medical facilities along the railway tracks throughout the country have already been compiled. This information is available on Railnet.
In pursuance of my budget speech of 2000-01, first aid boxes with wider range of medicines were provided in model stations and long distance trains. The training of front line staff is continuing.
It is proposed to expand the facilities and modernise the Railway Hospitals to provide cost effective high quality care to the Railway employees in Jagjivan Ram Hospital, Mumbai, Divisional Hospital, Jhansi, Railway Hospital, Perambur and Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital, Mumbai.
In order to provide better indoor medical facilities to the Metro Railway employees at Kolkata, one 30-bedded hospital is proposed to be set up at their Tollygunge outdoor clinic.
Tourism
Sir, I have given special attention to promote rail tourism. In my Budget speech last year, I had announced that a new "Palace on Wheels" type of train would be introduced between Maharashtra and Goa touching several places of tourist interest, as a joint effort between the Railways and the Government of Maharashtra. I am happy to inform the House that a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the Railways and the Government of Maharashtra recently. All other arrangements to ensure the introduction of the train will be firmed up shortly.
I am also happy to announce that another proposal to run a tourist train for the pilgrimage tourism on Secunderabad-Dharmavaram (Puttaparthy)-Tirupati-Guntur-Nadikude-Secunderabad circuit in Andhra Pradesh is being considered. Andhra Pradesh Government has also proposed a Palace-on-Wheels type of train for which modalities are being discussed.
Sir, I am also happy to announce that the Government of Karnataka has proposed to jointly run a 'Palace-on-Wheel' type of train on 'Bangalore-Hospet-Hubli-Goa-Mangalore-Hassan-Mysore-Bangalore circuit. Modalities in this regard are being worked out.
Orissa Government has sent a proposal for running a steam safari train on a route attractive for local tourism. Modalities in this regard are being worked out. Railways will welcome such proposals of tourism interest from any other State Government.
The newly incorporated Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation has taken up a few important tasks, which are expected to facilitate tourism in a big way. The "Mata Vaishno Devi" package launched in November 2000 has been very popular with pilgrim tourists.
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway has been recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. This greatly adds to the commitment of the Railways to maintain and preserve this unique piece of engineering skill for posterity. It is proposed to revamp and upgrade the infrastructure. We plan to run specially designed tourist packages in this area under the aegis of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation.
Preserving Railways' history through the institutions of regional rail museums has been an important activity of Railways. Rail Museum for southern region is going to be completed shortly. Similarly, I am happy to announce that new Regional Rail Museums will be set up at Varanasi and at Malda on the eastern region.
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Rail Budget Speech Part II
