Asia-Pacific

India presents passenger friendly railway budget

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-02-25 19:58

NEW DELHI - The Indian government Friday presented a passenger friendly railway budget, without raising the train fares but decreasing the ticket booking charges by 50 percent.

Related readings:  High-speed train trials on track  China, Kazakhstan to jointly build high-speed railway  Blast hits railway in southwest Pakistan  Chinese railways minister dismissed

Presenting the rail budget before Parliament, Indian Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee also announced a slew of other commuter friendly measures like slashing the rate of online ticketing and concession for physically handicapped passengers in superfast trains like Rajdhani Express and Shatabdi Express.

The budget also proposed the lowering of age limit for female senior citizens from 60 to 58 years, a multi-purpose "Go-India" smart card to buy tickets, and the introduction of at least 56 more express trains throughout the country.

Other populist proposals included the introduction of over 200 new routes, especially for northeastern India. Another special addition was the introduction of double-decker air-conditioned train service on the Jaipur-Delhi and Ahmedabad-Mumbai routes.

The minister also focused on rail safety this time and regretted the two incidents of sabotage which led to a large number of deaths last year.

"To avoid such incidents in future, anti-collision devices will be commissioned in three more divisions and all unmanned crossings will be done away with in the next fiscal," she said.

The Railway Minister, however, admitted the "Railways is going through a financially difficult phase".

"We have taken a two-point approach. On the one hand by sustainable, efficient and rapidly growing Indian Railways, and on the other, by an acute sense of social responsibility towards the common people of this nation," summed up Banerjee as she described her railway budget.

The state-owned Indian Railways, with more than 64,015 km of tracks and over 6,909 stations, is the world's fourth largest railway network after the United States, Russia and China.