“These logistic parks and warehouses would be created in PPP (public-private partnership) mode to bring the required efficiency and investment but also help attract greater traffic to the railways”. It will carry nearly 40% more passengers than regular trains.
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Modi has prioritised overhauling India’s dilapidated infrastructure in his first 20 months in power, but his government is expected to focus on more populist spending measures in Monday’s union budget, making fare hikes tough to justify.
In a series of tweets, Fadnavis thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Suresh Prabhu for “No Fare Hike” and for enhancing allocation to Maharashtra by 206 percent.
Women and senior citizens in the steel city have something to cheer about after the railways minister Suresh Prabhu presented his second Railway Budget on Thursday.
As per the recommendations of the central Pay Commission, the salaries of about 10 million government employees and pensioners would cost an additional 1.02 trillion rupees per annum, or 0.65% of gross domestic product in the fiscal year ending March 2017. The initiative to make railway stations more lovely and well equipped in this budget is laudable. It is in rising revenues that Prabhu said he will find the cash to keep the modernisation plan on track.
A government-appointed committee to look into railway finances has earlier suggested that a new format of dynamic pricing, on the lines of air tickets, for some trains designated as “premium” could boost earnings. I congratulate the Railway Minister for presenting a commitment of delivery oriented budget rather than a budget full of promises which remain unfulfilled. Nearly all the contracts for civil engineering works would have been awarded before the end of the current financial year, he said, adding that since he assumed office, contracts worth Rs24,000 crore have been awarded, against Rs13,000 crore worth of contracts in the last 6 years. Comparable railway networks overseas do obtain about 30% of their income from non-tariff sources.
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It said information technology services, telecom and engineering sectors can benefit from the announcements on the customer services side in the budget.
