Railway minister Lalu Prasad would have got an upper hand over Rail Bhawan bureaucracy if he announces a reduction of 8-10 per cent in AC-III tier and second-class sleeper fares in his last Budget tomorrow. Government officials said the minister was keen on gifting lower fares to the janata in an election year despite resistance within the ministry. While this may be the case, airfares in key sectors had almost dropped to AC-III tier levels a week or 10 days back before bouncing back earlier this week.

Besides lower fares, Lalu Prasad's populist budget for 2009-10 will include a substantial investment of Rs 12,000 crore for the ambitious East-West freight corridor. It starts from Kolkata and terminates at Mumbai, touching Ludhiana en route. The minister is keen to ensure freight corridors are executed in time to enable faster movement of goods. Given the increase in the number of passenger traffic on existing routes, the railways had favoured faster movement of goods through a dedicated line.

Interestingly, in what would warm the cockles of Congress that leads the United Progressive Alliance, the minister may announce the taking over of the ambitious rail coach factory at Rae Bareilly. At present, the unit - to come up at Congress President Sonia Gandhi's constituency - is structured as a joint venture with a private player. He may set aside funds for this too.

According to the officials, Lalu Prasad's budget will entail a total expenditure of Rs 35,000 crore for the next fiscal. The budgetary support to the railway plan will be about Rs 10,800 crore, representing a significant step up of 37 per cent compared with Rs 7,874 crore in 2008-09. These will be utilised to execute ongoing projects in far-flung areas including gauge conversions and electrification. Besides, the railways will use its internal resources of Rs 25,000 crore to upgrade existing projects.

Lalu Prasad, who desisted from hiking passenger fares despite increase in global prices of crude oil in the past five years, may this time announce some pro-people schemes ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. He is keen to share the benefits of lower oil prices. Irrespective of the downturn, Railways carried 2.4 per cent more freight at 74 million tonnes of in January this year.