This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 15.12.2017 (Friday).

PIB

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Thiruvananthapuram: As part of its programme to upgrade facilities for rail users, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu said here today that 200 more stations and some additional trains would be providedwith Wi-Fi in 2017.

Dedicating six Wi-Fi facilities to rail users at Kannur, Ernakulam and Kollam at a function here, he said 100 stations had been fitted with Wi-Fi this year and the target was to double this number in 2017.

“More trains will also would be provided with Wi-Fi next year,” he said.

“The objective is to have Wi-Fi facility in all railway stations in small cities and towns,” he said.

The Minister said steps were also on to construct escalators in stations, he said.

Welcoming the Kerala government’s decision to sign a Joint Venture with Railways for development projects in the state, he said that as partners, the railways would be developed in the state.

“The Centre and state will have equity in the venture and funds for the projects will be raised through market borrowings with the consent of the state government,” he said.

The resources spent under the JV would be in addition to funds earmarked in the Railway budget, he added.

Stating that investment in railway infrastructure can bring development to its optimum level in Kerala, Prabhu said he had asked some banks to prepare a business plan for the state.

Prabhu admitted that there was a lack of railway investment in Kerala and saidthe NDA government’s move was to reverse that trend.

Referring to remittances to the state from Non-Resident Keralites, he said even they could invest in railway projects.

“They can develop a railway station”, he said, adding that the key objective was to join hands for development.

The Railways was also looking out for resources other than its normal revenue.

They were also looking into the possibility of coverting its hospitals as medical college hospitals, he said.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and G Sudhakaran, PWD Minister and in charge of Railways were among those present.

PTI

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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: In a major overhaul, the Cabinet today approved advancing presentation of the annual Budget by a month, scrapped over nine decade old tradition of having a separate Railway Budget and removed classifications for expenditure to make the exercise simpler.

With a view to get all the legislative approvals for the annual spending and tax proposals before the beginning of the new financial year on April 1, the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved advancing date for presentation of the General Budget by a month instead of present practice of unveiling it at the end of February.

The Cabinet also approved merging Railway Budget with the general Budget and doing away with distinction of plan and non plan expenditure, officials said.

To facilitate this, the Budget Session of parliament will be called sometime before January 25, a month ahead of the current practice.

Accordingly, the beginning of budget preparation will be advanced to early October and GDP estimates made available on January 7 instead of February 7 now.

Till now Budget was presented on the last day of February and it is not until mid-May that the Parliament approves it in two parts. And with the monsoon arriving in June, most of the schemes and spendings by states do not take off until October, leaving just half a year for their implementation.

Early presentation of Budget would mean that the entire exercise is over by March 31, and expenditure as well as tax proposals come into effect right from the beginning of new fiscal, thereby ensuring better implementation.

Also, the 92 year old practice of presenting a separate budget for Railways has been scrapped and proposals pertaining to it would now form part of the General Budget.

This would lead to presentation of a single Appropriation Bill, including the estimates of Ministry of Railways, thereby saving precious time of Parliament by not having to hold separate consideration and passing of two Appropriation Bills.

The Cabinet also approved removal of distinction between Plan and Non Plan expenditure as the present classification resulted in excessive focus on former with almost equivalent neglect to items such as maintenance which are classified as non Plan.

The Cabinet felt it is the total expenditure, irrespective of Plan or Non-Plan, that generates value for the public. Plan expenditure was for the first time presented separately in the budget for 1959 to 1960.

PTI

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Source: NFIR

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Ministry of Railway has invited suggestions from the public regarding the forthcoming Railway Budget 2016-17. The suggestions can be given online on the website of Ministry of Railways (Railway Board) with the URL http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/. The icon with the Title “Public Suggestions on Forthcoming Railway Budget 2016-17” is available on the home page itself on the website.

The suggestions can be given on 15 Heads(with many sub heads) namely Computerization, Electrical, Electrification of lines, Finance, Foot over Bridges, Freight (Traffic Requirements Sidings, Rake Handling facility), Infrastructure(Freight Corridors, High Speed Corridors, Port and Mine Connectivity, PPP Initiatives), Innovative Ideas, Land(Commercial Utilisation of land, Station Development), Railway Lines(New Lines, Gauge conversion, Doubling, Doubling), Road over/ Under Bridges, Suggestions on Crime prevention, Suggestions on Safe running of Trains/Disaster Management, Tourism Related, Trains(New Trains, Extension of Trains, Augmentation of Trains, Frequency of Trains, Tourist Trains, Pantry Cars & Catering)

The last date of submission is 15th January, 2016.

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Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Railways

22-April, 2015

Suresh Prabhu Launches Mobile App for Paperless Unreserved Ticketing

Fulfilling yet another commitment of the Railway Budget 2015-16, the Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu launched Mobile Application for Paperless Unreserved Ticketing through video conferencing on Egmore–Tambaram Suburban Section of Chennai, at a function here today. Referring his Railway Budget announcement, the Railway Minister said that for the passenger, the Indian Railways is committed to ‘Operation Five Minutes’ – that is, purchase of an unreserved ticket within five minutes and today’s launching of Paperless Unreserved Mobile Ticket is the first step in this area. He said that it will allow the passenger to buy a ticket on the move and allow him or her to board the train with the ticket secured on his or her mobile phone, without any need for printing the ticket. Shri Suresh Prabhu commended all the members of CRIS to develop the Paperless Unreserved Ticketing Mobile Application and hoped for speedy implementation of other IT projects in the pipeline. The railway Minister said that the innovative ideas are always welcome and said that he has set up ‘Kayakalp’ Council which will consider innovative ideas for the betterment of Indian Railways. He said that Shri Suresh Prabhu also unveiled the plaque for the foundation of the Indian Railways Datacentre in Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), an IT wing of Indian Railways, which will provide state-of-the art facilities to house the required computer equipment. Shri Prabhu said that he would expect this new building to be environmental friendly and called upon the officials to complete the construction of this building before scheduled deadline ensuring quality with less cost.

Speaking on the, Chairman, Railway Board, Shri A.K.Mital said that CRIS, a IT arm of Indian Railways since 1986, has proved capable of managing large railway-wide IT applications such as Passenger Reservation System, Unreserved Ticketing System and Freight Operations Information System. He said that over the years, CRIS has implemented other centralised applications such as Control Officer Application, Crew Management System and Integrated Coaching Management System. Shri Mital said that with CRIS taking up the challenge of developing and implementing these large system, the Indian Railways will see a sea-change in the effectiveness and utilisation of its assets, cutting down cost and improving its services.

Member Traffic, Railway Board, Shri Ajay Shukla said that the Unreserved Ticketing System is an important revenue generating system developed by CRIS. He said that nearly two crore passengers obtain unreserved tickets daily through nearly 11470 counters and 5836 locations generating about Rs. 52 crore of revenue per day. He congratulated CRIS for successfully developing Application App for paperless unreserved ticketing system on Indian Railways.

To move forward in line with digital India, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) has developed a paperless Unreserved Ticketing feature in Mobile Application “utsonmobile” both for Android and Widows platforms. This will eliminate the need for printing of Unreserved Tickets on ATVMs at the stations. User can download ‘App’ from Google Play Store or Window Store.

The application is being rolled out as a pilot between Chennai Egmore & Tambaram suburban Section of Southern Railway covering 15 stations. For paperless ticketing, GPS co-ordinates of suburban railway track on the Chennai Egmore-Tambaram section, plus 15 meters on either side of the tracks have been earmarked as Geo-Fencing area within which no ticket booking is allowed in order to ensure that passengers have ticket before commencing the journey. After implementation of paperless ticketing, facility of printing paper ticket at ATVM will not be available on Chennai-Egmore to Tambaram Section.

The application provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process. Payment for the ticket is done through the “Railway Wallet” feature in the “App”. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get the ticket confirmation screen which contains limited information of the ticket. The paperless journey ticket will be stored in the local mobile application database in the encrypted form which cannot be tampered with. The passenger has to start the journey within 1 hour as per policy for suburban sections. Ticket booked in paperless mode cannot be cancelled in order to prevent claiming of refund after travel.

The ticket has distinct colour scheme everyday and it is embedded with Quick Response (QR) code. It cannot be forwarded to another mobile or edited or printed. The old invalid tickets will be removed from the mobile device through a sync feature in the ‘App’.

For the purpose of ticket checking, the application has various features such as colour scheme, show ticket features, secret code of the day, booking time of the ticket and scrolling of legend “IR UNRESERVED TICKETING’. In case of mobile in disconnected mode, it will be checked through QR Code.

The Indian Railways Datacentre will be a new building in the premises of existing CRIS office. Indian Railways depends heavily on Information Technology for its customer facing commercial activities, train operations, and internal management. Critical IT applications run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the year, to support Railway operations. These applications cannot be shut down for even a minute on account of any outage of power or cooling.

Sensitive computer equipment used by these IT applications such as high-end servers, storage, network switches etc. needs a controlled environment with precision air-conditioning, uninterruptible power supply (UPPS) , adequate network bandwidth, fire suppression, access control and comprehensive security/surveillance.

The existing datacenters of Indian Railways are nearing their fully capacity. As the number of critical applications increases, this capacity needs to be expanded and the infrastructure brought in line with global standards. To achieve this, the IR Datacentre in CRIS has been planned to ensure state of the art infrastructure for continuous power, precision cooling and protection to the equipment. Complete redundancy and physical security will be provided in the datacenter facilities through the latest technologies in this area. A secure Internet gateway with high bandwidth datacom circuits already exists, and will be expanded further.

The Indian Railways Datacentre can also cater to its PSUs and will help Railways to provide better services to its customers and management.

PIB

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No.AIRF/60

Dated: February 23, 2015

The General Secretaries,
All Affiliated Unions,

Dear Comrades,

Sub: Pre-Rail Budget Meeting of the Railway Federations with Hon’ble MoSR

Today Presidents and General Secretaries/Secretary Generals of all the Recognized Federations of the Railwaymen met Hon’ble MoSR and handed him over following significant suggestions for including the same in the forthcoming Rail Budget 2015-16:-

The government is concerned about the safety and welfare of its workers and officers, serving round-the-clock to transport passengers and freight from one end to other end of the country.

The following burning issues may be considered favourably:-

• Maintenance/repair cost of more than 60% over-aged staff quarters has gone considerably higher. As such, present allotment of budget for maintenance of railway quarters may be increased by 30%. Please take steps to improve the condition of the Drivers/Guards Running Rooms, Barracks, TTEs Rest Rooms, Subordinate Rest Houses also.
• Smart Card Medical Facilities are requested to be extended to all the Railwaymen.
• Vacancies of Safety Category posts may be filled-up in the larger interest of safe-rail operation.
• Scope of the LARSGESS for Safety Categories, which has been found to be very useful, may be extended to all Group `C’ categories.
• The government proposes to introduce “House and Education for all”. For this purpose, vacant railway land at various stations may be utilized, and the Ministry of Urban Development be approached to construct houses for the Railwaymen, and easy home loans may be provided through the Banks and Railway Schemes.
• The government has decided to open Medical and Engineering Colleges, Universities for the children of its workforce. The same may be extended to the Railwaymen as well.
• The government is concerned about the welfare of the Railwaymen and their families and dependants. Parents of the Railwaymen may be granted Railway Pass and Medical facilities.
• Quasi-administrative staff, working in the Federation/Union Offices, who are availing Railway Pass and Medical facilities may kindly be absorbed in the Railways.
• As the then Hon’ble Minister for Railways has already written a letter to the then Hon’ble Finance Minister to implement Old Pension Scheme in place of National Pension Scheme(NPS), and for that it has also been written that financial provisions will be made by the Railways itself. Therefore, it is requested that provisions for the same should be made in this Rail Budget.
• Repealing of RPF Amendment Act, 2001 should be implemented to give powers to the RPF.
• Railway Federations and Associations have been expressing their concern on outsourcing and FDI in the Railways. This has been considered by the government, and the Hon’ble Prime Minister has already announced that there is no intention for privatization of the Indian Railways. Keeping in view prevailing cordial industrial relations, it is requested to re-call the instructions of the government on FDI in the Indian Railways.

Yours faithfully,

(Shiva Gopal Mishara)
General Secretary

Source: http://www.nrmu.net

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Sources Said: The Narendra Modi government’s first full-fledged railway budget to be announced on February 26 could be a muted exercise with no big-ticket announcements of new projects or railway lines, as has been the practice. Rationalisation of passenger fares or freight rates is also unlikely, according to sources.

However, what is likely is a focus on infrastructure creation in the northeast and improving passenger amenities such as introduction of vacuum toilets and dedicated freight services for farmers. The new railway minister, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, will lay greater emphasis on early and timely completion of all big existing projects rather than on new announcements.

According to officials who are part of this year’s budget preparations, the minister, who has a reputation for being a doer, might not tinker with fares or freight rates. A committee headed by D K Mittal, former secretary, financial services, has recommended an increase of two-paise per km in passenger fare. “The main thrust will be to increase the share of railways in the overall freight traffic, which is sliding at a fast rate,” said a senior official, who participated in some of the prebudget discussions.

The railway budget will not have announcements of too many new lines or projects – as is done every year based on political considerations – said another senior official from the rail ministry, who did not wish to be named. “These projects become an economic liability on us. So this time, the ministry is not entertaining specific requests for rail lines from members of Parliament (MPs),” he added. The first official said a key focus area in the coming railway budget could be infrastructure creation in north-eastern parts of the country, where a large number of projects are due for completion or about to take off in states such as Meghalaya and Mizoram. Prime Minister Modi had, during a tour to the north-eastern states in December 2014, announced Central funding for new railway lines in the region. “This is the best destination for tourists. But for that we require connectivity. For the development of this area and tourism, Rs 28,000 crore will be provided for a new railwayline project and 14 new railway lines,” he had said. According to officials, the overall thrust of the budget could also be on exploring and listing alternative sources of funding for the Indian Railways as the current traditional sources of non-Budgetary support including Indian Railways Finance Corporation bonds have been found to be inadequate.

The rail ministry has already decided to tap foreign pension funds as part of its resource mobilisation plan to bailout the Railways from its financial woes. “We will invite foreign pension funds to invest in Indian Railways. This could be in the form ofloans at a cheaper rate.

We have to bring in investments both from within and outside the country,” Prabhu had said last month. Prabhu, who took over as railway minister from Sadananda Gowda on November 10, 2014, will present his maiden rail budget in Parliament at a time the transporter is facing cost overruns to the tune of Rs1.11 lakh crore across 288 projects, Rs 30,000 crore annual losses on passenger service that is crosssubsidised with freight resulting into loss of freight market share; rising expenditure on fuel and pay for employees, dip in passenger volumes, slow progress of privatepublic partnership (PPP) projects and a lack of upgradation of infrastructure leading to accidents. Gowda, while presenting the railway budget in July 2014, had not touched fares but promised a turnaround through infusion of private investment and monetising railways ‘ vast land assets. Gowda’s budget also had fewer populist measures than other ministers in the past..

Source: News paper article published in FE

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A.I.R.F
All India Railwaymen’s Federation

4, State Entry Road,
New Delhi.-110055

D.O.No. AIRF/60

Dated: July 14, 2014

Resp. Shri Sadananda Gowda Ji,
Sub: Rail Budget 2014-15

We are very much pained and constrained on the Rail Budget 2014-15, presented by you in the floor of the Lok Sabha.

I had given you a memorandum consisting of suggestions related to Rail Budget, but unfortunately none of them could get place in this Rail Budget, and by and large there is nothing motivational and inspiring for the Railwaymen in the said Rail Budget. This has happened after a long time.

Moreover, direction of the said Rail Budget is towards privatization, and the announcement of Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) in the Railways has created lot of resentment among the Railwaymen. All India Railwaymen’s Federation(AIRF) in its General Council Meeting, held at Chennai on 3-4 July, 2014, unanimously adopted a resolution to oppose all kinds of privatization in the Railways.

AIRF is a recognized federation and having a wider support among 13 lakh Railway employees. We always expect from the Railway Board that before making any announcement, which may change the face/ownership of the Railways, the matter must be discussed transparently with the Federation. But in the matter of FDI and PPP, no discussion has been made with the recognized federations.

If any decision detrimental to the interest of Railway Industry, Railwaymen in particular and the Rail users in general, takes place, we will have no other alternative, but to organize sustained struggle to save the Indian Railways.

In this Rail Budget, something also has been said about the Restructuring of the Railways. Earlier also there had been similar talks of Railway Restructuring through Rakesh Mohan and Prakash Tandan Committees and also under various modes.

We know that, the Planning Commission in the past also tried to privatize the Indian Railways but they could not do so because of pressure from the Railway workers as well as rail users.
I know that, as “Opposition”, at that time, the BJP had also opposed the idea of Privatization and FDI. There should not be any change in that stand on coming into power.

Since lot of demoralization and de-motivation are going down the line among the Railway employees, who are very sensitive and working round-the-clock to keep operative country’s lifeline. It would be appreciated, if a dialogue is organized with the recognized federations, representing 13 lakh Railway employees, at an earliest to clarify various issues, taking the Railways to a different direction.

I do hope, you will take this communication in a very justify perspective because the AIRF throughout the years, after 1974, has tried to maintain industrial peace and still stands for the same, but such announcements may create a breach of industrial peace.

Therefore, an early dialogue is requested.

With kind regards!
Yours Sincerely,
sd/-
(Shiva Gopal Mishra)
General Secretary

Source : AIRF

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