New Delhi: Highlights of the Railway Budget 2014-15 presented by Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Key Highlights
* No new increase in passenger fares and freight charges
* 58 new trains and extension of 11; 864 additional EMUs to be introduced in Mumbai over 2 years
* Bullet train on Mumbai-Ahmedabad Sector
* Diamond quadrilateral for high speed trains
* Plan to hike speed of trains to 160-200 km/hr in 9 sectors
* Online booking to support 7,200 tickets/minute; to allow 1.2 lakh users log in simultaneously
* Reservation system to be revamped, ticket-booking through mobile phones, post offices to be popularised
* Online platform, unreserved tickets
* Combo parking-platform tickets at stations
* Women RPF Constables to escort ladies coaches; 4,000 women constables to be inducted
* Retiring room facility to be extended to all stations
* Battery operated cars for differently abled and senior citizens at major stations
* Feedback services through IVRS on quality of food
* Food can be ordered through SMS, phone; Food courts at major stations
* Cleanliness budget up by 40 percent over last year
* CCTVs to be used at stations for monitoring cleanliness
* Setting up of corpus fund for stations' upkeep; RO drinking water at stations and trains
* Automatic door closing in mainline and sub-urban coaches
* FDI in railway projects, except in operations
* FDI, domestic investments in rail infrastructure
* Office-on-Wheels: Internet & Workstation facilities on select trains
* Wi-Fi in A-1, A category stations and in select trains
* Rail university for technical and non-technical subjects
* Some stations to be developed to international standards through PPP model
* Parcel traffic to be segregated to separate terminals to make passenger traffic unhindered
* Loss per passenger per kilometre up from 10p (in 2000-01) to 23p (2012-13)
* Solar energy to be tapped at major stations
* Highest ever plan outlay of Rs 65,455 crore for 2014-15
* Expenditure in 2014-15 pegged at Rs 149,176 crore.
