random acts of the mindless

Railway Budget '07 - Main Points

• Ladies above 45 years will have greater quota.


• New rail lines to aid new steel & power plants.


• No more wooden seats in trains.


• 800 bogies to be added to popular trains.


• Rail infrastructure revamp planned.


• Huge investment for containers.


• Wagon production up by 10%.


• Fifty per cent fare concession for UPSC and other official examinees.


• Changes in the design of compartments to help physically disabled.


• Separate coach for vendors, milkmen and petty traders in passenger trains.


• Coupon validating machines (CVMs), after its success in Mumbai, is to be introduced in Kolkata, Chennai


• Mumbai to get smart card-based reservation system in Mumbai on trial basis


• Six thousand automatic ticket vending machines to be set


• up in next two years


• Number of berths to be increased from 72 to 84 in sleeper


• coaches.


• Tickets to be sold at petrol pumps, ATM centres, etc


• Ticket bookings and hotel bookings can be done through railway call centres to be set up


• Railway interest surplus at Rs 10,227 crore


• Freight earning s up 17% in Apr-Dec


• Passenger traffic up 14% in Apr-Dec


• 60 MT extra freight loading in 2007


• To invest in 3 storey freight containers


• 15 private container licence issued


• Pipavah-Jaipur double-decker train to begin


• Tariff discount to up high axle output; to explore independent private tariff agency.


• Railways to reserve a quota of lower seats for senior citizens and for women aged more than 45 years.


• 20-30 per cent increase in passenger traffic


• All customer complaints to be disposed in three months


• Fund balance at Rs 16,000 crore (Rs 160 billion)


• Freight: Incremental loading of 60 million tonne this year


• Cement steel traffic up by 20 to 30 per cent


• High surplus recorded without load on common man


• Plan to start three-storey container trains


• Will invest massively in container operations over the next 5 years


• Lalu claims container train experiment has been successful


• Efforts to increase container traffic five-fold to 100 million tonnes by 2011-12


• Each zone will have a SP grade officer to look into consumer complaints


• New wagons to be replaced by new ones


• To invest in improving infrastructure around railway stations


• Wooden seats to be replaced by cushioned ones in ordinary class passenger trains from next fiscal.


• Unreserved compartments in new trains to be increased from four to six


• Freight revenues up 17 per cent, passenger revenues increase 14 per cent in April-December 2006

Source Rediff.com

posted by The Soulforged @ 2/26/2007