This is perhaps for the first time in the recent history of Indian railways that the day of budget has not been treated as an occasion for bounty distribution by the minister.  For the past several decades it was made customary to announce unplanned projects and new train additions to create further backlog of railways projects.  The minister resisted the temptation by not announcing them and thus created a good precedence.

There was nothing charitable about not increasing fares because since the time of PK Bansal to the present minister, the fares had already been hiked several times.  In the last budget they had hiked fares to the tune of 14.5% and the process had already reached saturation point.  It would negatively affect the volume of passenger traffic if it had further increased.  The passenger revenue had already declined. The last year’s budgeted passenger earning had been scaled down from 22.2% to 17.7% due to negative growth trend and perhaps the railways had to be satisfied with 12 to 15 percent growth because it could not create more than 3 to 5 percent passenger growth above the expected GDP rate for the present year which was supposed to be around 7.5 per cent.

Similarly, the freight traffic has been pegged at all-time high at 85 million tonnes more than the previous year which seems to be difficult to achieve as the gross traffic receipt last year was reduced considerably as compared to budgeted and revised estimates.  The targeted operating ratio is 88.5 percent fixed on the basis of lower fuel bills and shrinking ordinary working expenses which may sound logical but not easily achievable. 

The budget has an ambitious plan of investment of Rs. 856020 crore for five years which includes network expansion, national projects, safety, rolling stock, passenger amenities, high speed rail corridor, station development and logistics etc.  Though the budgetary resources have not been clearly mentioned or worked out, the minister seems to rely upon internal resources, PPP schemes, banks and pension funds.  However, these are very shaky resources and the past experience has not been very encouraging.  There is no mention of FDI for railways perhaps to satisfy the federations of railways employees.  The budget seems to be weak on resource mobilisation programme.