One of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, the Indian Railways is spread over 64,015 route kilometres and is a major mode of transport for passenger and bulk freight traffic.
Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal, the Railways Minister, in one of his recent speeches, praised the Indian Railways for entering the billionaire's club, reckoned by the estimated quantum of originating freight traffic over its network in 2012-13.
Government Initiatives
The Ministry of Railways, Government of India and the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), the French National Railways, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for technical cooperation in the field of Railways. Four areas of mutual collaboration that have been incorporated in the MoU are-
- High speed and semi-high speed rail;
- Station renovation and operations;
- Modernisation of current operations and infrastructure;
- Sub-urban trains
Under the High Speed Cooperation Programme, the two countries have decided to jointly carry out an 'operations and development' feasibility project on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail. SNCF will be funding the project with a support from the French Ministry of Finance.
The bi-lateral agreement is valid for a period of five years and is extendable by one year with mutual consent.
Meanwhile, Mr Bansal presented the Railway Budget 2013-14 in the Parliament, laying intense thrust on safety, consolidation, improving passenger amenities and fiscal discipline. Major highlights of the Budget are-
- The Ministry has proposed highest ever plan outlay of Rs. 63,363 crore (US$ 11.71 billion) for 2013-14
- The budget encapsulates number of measures to improve passenger amenities and to make railway services people-sensitive and more efficient. These would include introduction of several IT-enabled services for reservations and new trains; internet ticketing; e-ticketing through mobile phones, SMS alerts to passengers providing updates on reservation status
- Mr Bansal took pride in announcing that the Indian Railways is set to achieve the milestone of entering the select club of railways with over one billion ton freight loading. At present, only the Chinese, Russian and the US Railways have this distinction
- Furthermore, the Budget gave details about the new railway projects to be taken up during 2013-14 wherein 67 new express trains and 26 new passengers’ services would be introduced. There would be extension of 57 trains besides increase in frequency of 24 trains
Road Ahead
Apart from its main business, Indian Railways is set to clock huge revenues from non-core activities to maximise the utility's efficiency and effectiveness. The Railways Minister anticipates that the department would rake-in revenues of over Rs 6,000 crore (US$ 1.11 billion) in 2013-14 from activities such as commercial exploitation of its land reserves, letting out advertising space and more aggressive scrap sales.
In addition to that, Indian Railways is expected to clock a healthy 5.5 per cent growth in freight traffic in 2013-14 as against a 4 per cent growth for 2012-13, according to a report from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). This growth is expected to come on the back of a healthy growth in the freight traffic of commodities like coal, cement, iron ore for steel plants and fertilizers.
Exchange Rate: INR 1 = US$ 0.01849, as on April 17, 2013
References: Press Releases, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Press information Bureau.