17 non-stop trains, no fare hike to make you feel good

Internal resources for the plan were fixed at a mere Rs 2,635 crore while budgetary support was placed at Rs 4,544 crore and market borrowing at Rs 3,050 crore.

About Rs 2,795 crore will come from the Special Railways Safety Fund and Rs 401 crore from Central Road Fund. The plan also includes Rs 717 crore, earmarked for Rail Vikas Nigam Limited.

Nitish provided an additional outlay of Rs 20,000 crore for projects to connect remote and backward areas, execution of these projects will be expedited in the next five years. But it was the decision to launch 17 Sampark Kranti Express without halts that made everyone sit up. These trains, while replicating features of Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Jan Shatabdi trains, would cater to all classes.

The first train, a tri-weekly from Bangalore to Delhi, will be flagged off on February 8. It will subsequently be made a daily from October 2. Karnataka is the only southern state where the BJP hopes to make gains in the Lok Sabha polls.

Cities to be connected to Delhi by these trains are Guwahati, Secunderabad, Durg, Ahmedabad, Ranchi, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Jabalpur, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Madurai, Chitrakoot, Kathgodam, Sealdah, Madgaon and Udhampur.

Listing budget estimates for 2004-05, Nitish expected freight traffic to grow another 20 million tonnes, taking it to 570 million tonnes. A three per cent growth in passenger traffic is also expected.

Gross traffic receipts have been estimated at Rs 44,482 crore which is Rs 1877 crore over revised estimates of the current year. Ordinary working expenses have been budgeted at Rs 32,960 crore. Besides the current dividend of Rs 3,305 crore, Rs 300 crore deferred dividend will be cleared.

Ordinary working expenses are likely to be less by Rs 1490 crore. Appropriation to the pension fund has been reduced by Rs 295 crore while appropriation to depreciation reserve fund has been increased by Rs 262 crore. Besides current dividend of Rs 2,968 crore, a sum of Rs 300 crore of deferred dividend will be cleared.

Nitish announced the RPF is being geared to take up responsibilities of train escorting and security in passenger areas from July 1. He conceded that Railways have over 230 projects worth about Rs 43,000 crore on the shelf. Even with enhanced support, there will still be outstanding projects valued at Rs 20,000 crore after the next five years. He also claimed the Railways would achieve substantial reduction in accidents per million train km from 0.44 in 2002-03 to 0.30 in four years.

Nitish
flags off NDA’s Election Express