New Delhi, February 26
The following are the highlights of the Railway Budget for the year 2003-04:
* No hike in passenger fares
* No hike in freight rates
* Parcel rates rationalised
* White paper on rail safety to be presented in Parliament
* Total plan outlay is Rs 12,918 crore including outlay of Rs 2,311 crore through Special Railway Safety Fund (SRSF)
* Introduction of 50 trains, increase in frequency of 13 trains and extension of run of 24 popular trains proposed.
* Reduction of fares in selected trains in non-peak periods to be introduced
* 10 per cent reduction in AC class in all Rajdhani trains between July 15 and September 15 this year.
* Basic fares of different classes of Rajdhani and Shatabdi will now be lower for most pairs of stations.
* Age limit to avail senior citizens’ concession on rail fares lowered to 60 years from the existing 65 years.
* Cancer, thalassemia major and heart patients to be granted upto 75 per cent concession on rail fares.
* Kidney patients undertaking train journey for the purpose of treatment to get similar travel concession.
* Mega terminals to be built at Anand Vihar in Delhi and Chitpur in Kolkata to ease congestion.
* Plan to install a device in trains to avoid collisions.
* Un-reserved ticketing system to be extended.
* Passenger traffic registers three per cent decline till the period up to December 2002.
* Passenger traffic growth pegged at three per cent and freight growth by 25 million tonnes.
* Year 2003-04 dedicated to the customers and declared as “Customer Satisfaction Year”.
* National Rail Vikas Yojana launched for strengthening Golden Quadrilateral, rail connectivity to ports and construction of mega bridges.
* Existing concessions to journalists in rail fares to be extended to Rajdhani and Shatabdi express trains
* To strengthen Railway Protection Force; 3500 constables to be recruited
* Track renewal of around 5400 km to be completed by the end of this year.
* Jammu-Udhampur rail link targeted to be completed by March 2004 and the rail link upto Katra to be completed during 2004-05.
* Additional funds of Rs 500 crore being provided for Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramula national project.
