Railways today maintained that the merger of its budget with General Budget will have no adverse effect on its functioning and there will be positive outcome as the exchequer support to the national transporter will increase henceforth.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will not present a separate Rail Budget for the fiscal 2017-18 in the coming budget session in Parliament as the government has decided to do away with the year-long tradition of having it separately.

“Merger of Rail Budget has positive implications. It is very simple, no adverse implication and only positive implication,” Railway Board Chairman A K Mittal said at the Edotors conference here.

He said the Railways will no longer pay dividends to the exchequer which is a gain for the organisation.

Railways receieve gross budgetary support from the Finance Ministry and in return pay dividends on it.

“We have paid about Rs 9500 cr as dividends this year but now we do not have to pay dividends any longer after the merger,” Mital said.

Comparing with other transporter sectors, he said investment in railways was much less than the road sector over the years and as a result rail sector was languishing for the lack of infrastructure development.

“The investment in road sector was twice more than the rail sector. But now we hope a holistic approach will be adopted by the government for the whole transport sector including railways, road, waterways and others,” he said.

Asked about the possibilities of announcement of any tie-up with Japan on rail sector during the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ongoing Japan trip, he said “further discussion of Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail project is expected to come up.”

Japan is providing financial and technology support to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.

On the demonitisation crisis, he was asked whether ticket counters are being used to convert black money to white and he said “Railways is in the buisness of carrying passengers and goods and is not for changing the colour of the money.”

After the demonitisation of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes, ticket counters all over the country are witnessing heavy rush as people are using these notes to buy tickets and subsequently cancelling them to encash smaller denomination notes.

“Some people might think of that way. But now the refund will go to their account only,” he said.

Railways has decided to give refund money worth Rs 10,000 or above to the customers bank accounts.

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New Delhi: Railway Board officials today briefed a Parliamentary panel on the implications of the government’s decision to merge the railway budget with the general budget.

Railway Board Chairman A K Mittal explained various issues related with the merger to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, sources said.

Representatives of Railway Board briefed the committee, headed by senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily, about the government’s budgetary reforms, including “merger of railway budget with general budget and the ramifications thereof”, they said.

The Cabinet last month approved the Finance Ministry’s proposal on landmark budgetary reforms relating to merger of railway budget with the general budget and the advancement of the date of presentation from the last working day of February.

As per practice, the general budget is presented in the Lok Sabha on the last working day of February.

The Cabinet has also given its permission to the merger of Plan and Non-Plan classification in the Budget and Accounts.

The presentation of separate railway budget started in 1924, and has continued after independence as a convention rather than under Constitutional provisions.

Earlier, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu had said that railways will maintain its separate identity and functional autonomy even after merger of its budget with the general budget.

PTI

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The Budget Session of Parliament will commence on February 23 that will focus largely on the financial business of the government, which will present the general budget on Feb 29.

But there will be no curtailment of the session or the recess period on account of Assembly elections in five states due shortly.

This was decided at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

“The budget session of parliament will commence on February 23. The Rail Budget will be presented on February 25, the pre-budget economic survey on February 26 and the General budget on February 29.

“The first part of Budget session will end on March 16 and the second part will be convened from April 25 to May 13,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters after the meeting of CCPA.

He said there were suggestions for curtailing the recess period due to assembly elections in five states but the government as well as political parties wanted a full session.

“In 2011, the then government had decided not to refer bills to Standing Committees in the budget session when states were going to polls and there were demands to curtail the session.

“But the government today decided that bills will be referred to standing committees for examination during recess period,” Naidu said.

PTI

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PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

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DEFENCE ALLOCATION RAISED TO RS 2,29,000 CRORE

CAPITAL OUTLAY FOR DEFENCE MODERNIZATION INCREASED BY RS 5,000 CRORE

New Delhi: July 10, 2014
Ashadha 19,1936

Allocation for defence in this year’s General Budget has been raised to Rs 2,29,000 crore. Presenting the Union Budget in Lok Sabha today, the Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley also proposed a further sum of Rs 1,000 crore to address the pension disparities while implementing the policy of “one rank one pension” for soldiers.
Emphasizing on the modernization of the armed forces to enable them to play their role effectively in the defence of country’s strategic interests, the Finance Minister also proposed to increase the capital outlay for defence modernization by Rs 5,000 crore over the amount provided for in the interim Budget. This includes a sum of Rs 1,000 crore for accelerating the development of the Railways system in the border areas. He said urgent steps would also be taken to stream line the procurement process to make it speedy and more efficient.

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DSM/Samir/SK

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