New Delhi, Feb 23 (IANS) With the Vision 2020 document for Indian Railways her guiding force, Mamata Banerjee will present the rail budget for the next fiscal Wednesday, which is widely expected to keep passenger fares untouched but rationalise freight tariff in a bid to shore up drying revenues.
At the same time, a bonanza in the form of new routes and higher frequency of existing trains particularly await the people of West Bengal, as the fiery minister is not one to leave an opportunity to appease the people of her home state, particularly when it is scheduled for assembly polls next year.
To Banerjee's relief, though, this fiscal has not been too bad for Indian Railways, the world's second largest under a single management with a network of 108,706 km to ferry some 14 million passengers on 7,000 trains daily from 6,906 stations apart from running 4,000 freight trains to carry 850 million tonnes of cargo.
Data with the ministry suggests its total earnings in the first 10 months of this fiscal was up 8.6 percent at Rs.70,501.65 crore ($14.1 billion) against Rs.64943.32 crore ($13 billion) in the like period last year.
The total goods earnings grew 8.47 percent and the total passenger revenue earnings were up 7.40 percent, ministry data showed -- an indication of a much better performance, given the slowdown in the Indian economy during the larger part of the year.
Yet, the ministry is well aware that the share of Indian Railways in the movement of goods, vis a vis truckers, has fallen from 24.07 percent in 2001-02 to 20.89 percent in 2008-09.
In the first 10 months of this fiscal, this share has further dropped to 19.32 percent, compared with 80.68 percent for trucks, according to the Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training.
Clearly, grabbing a higher share of freight, that accounts for the bulk of the earnings for Indian Railways, will be prime on the minister's agenda.
At the same time, going by the Vision 2020 document released in December, a target has been set of making more than 30,000 km of the routes into double or multiple lines, compared to 18,000 km today. Some 33,000 km will be electrified.
This focus, according to the ministry's paper, will be on the Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Mumbai, Kolkata-Mumbai and Delhi-Chennai routes, on which dedicated freight corridors would be created.
Among other main goals are benchmarking the quality of service to the best in the world, zero accidents, utilising at least 10 percent of energy requirements from renewable sources and a foolproof eco-friendly waste management system.
This apart, the maximum speed of passenger trains would be raised from 110-130 km per hour at present to 160-200 km per hour, and for freight operations from 60-70 km to over 100 km.
Banerjee's intention will be to set aside budgetary allocations for several of these measures listed in the document. She has already approached Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the cabinet with a host of proposals.
Yet, not all of her dozen-odd projects, including more funds for the Special Railway Safety Fund, have the finance ministry's assurance on funding.
Higher private investment and participation, therefore, may be the only long-term solution to better the railroad infrastructure in the country, even if Banerjee has been rather lukewarm to the idea in the past.