Railway Budget Out:Cuts Passenger Fares And Freight Rates.

27 Feb

Posted by Shyam as Market News

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav today presented his fifth consecutive Railway Budget for the year 2008-09.As expected the budget was a people centric one keeping in mind the coming elections in the year May 2009.It is one of the biggest ever annual plan for the Railways to spend over Rs 37,500 crores in this fiscal year which is 21% higher than the previous year.

Many steps have been taken to make the train journey comfortable,secure and a soothing experience.The key highlight apart from the reduction of fares is the plan to introduce mobile ticketing facility very soon to terminate long queues in the stations.

Here are some of the key features of this years Railway Budget:

>Passenger Fares for express trains down by Rs 50.
>First Class A/C fares down by 7%,A/C II tier by 4%,second class fares cut by Rs 1 for every ticket beyond 50 Kms.
>Introduction of Ten Garib Raths ,53 new mail and express trains.
>Fare Concession for senior women citizens increased from 30% to 50% in all classes.
>Freight Rates for petrol and diesel are down by 5%.
>Many new concession schemes announced for students and especially girl students upto class 12th,Ashok chakra Awardess,AIDS patients,senior lady citizens.
>Plans to introduce easy ticketing facility through mobile phones in coming years.
>Crores of Rupees to spent on extension,renewal,signal and telecommunication works,Over bridges,manning unmanned level crossings etc.

There are many good things to be observed in this budget like the lowering the fares and freight rates to compete against the low fare airlines,spending on technology upgradation,rail line renewal and development works considerably higher than the previous years.

The markets also reacted very positively to the Railway budget.Sensex closed in green gaining over 155 points to close at 17,806 levels and nifty was also up by 69 points and settled at 5,270 points.Some sectors like steel,software and rail equipment manufactures traded positively.Investors are expecting a very similar general budget this year to be presented very soon.Meanwhile the key Asian markets and US markets are also firming up leading to Indian markets gaining momentum.Hopefully we may see a current uptrend in the coming days.

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