Top ten quotes from Suresh Prabhu’s Rail Budget speech

1. Setting the mood in the right chord, Prabhu began with humour and pun saying, “Hey Prabhu yeh kaam kaise hoga.”

2. It is an organization that touches the hearts and existence of all Indians, even Mahatma Gandhi. Bapu decided to undertake a voyage of discovery of India before launching himself into the national freedom movement. And he conducted this Bharat Darshan on trains, always travelling in third class.

3. We want to make Swachh Rail the driving force behind this Government’s flagship programme – Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Hence, we now work on-Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat.

4. Introducing ‘Operation 5-minute’ to ensure ticketless passenger get regular ticket within five minute of entering station.

5. Railways goal is to give increase connectivity in Northeast and J&K.

5. An all -India 24X7 helpline number, 138, will become functional to attend to the problems of passengers on a real time basis. Passengers will be able to call up for complaints while on trains. A mobile application to redress Railway-related complaints is also being developed.

7. The Indian Railways have to run fast express trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi, ordinary slow passenger trains as well as goods trains. Is it surprising that though Rajdhani and Shatabdi are capable of doing 130 km/hour, the average speed does not exceed 70? Is it surprising that the ordinary passenger train or a goods train cannot average more than around 25 km/hour?

8. We must restore the strength of Bhartiya Rail as the backbone of our country’s transportation infrastructure. Bhartiya Rail must substantially regain the market share of freight transport.

9. Our people are our biggest asset. Even in the short term that I have held this portfolio I have seen the enthusiasm and dedication of Railway personnel across the country. For our transformation journey to succeed it will be very important to harness the talent of our employees through training and development.

10. Railways plan to set up ‘waste to energy’ conversion plants near major coaching terminals to dispose waste in an environment-friendly manner.