Initial Announcements relating to Railways in the 2017-18 budget:
(1)- Steps will be taken to launch dedicated trains for pilgrimage and tourism
(2)- Rail safety fund with corpus of Rs 100,000 crore will be created over a period of five years
(3)- Outlay for railways fixed at Rs 1,31,000 crore with Rs 55,000 crore Budget support. i.e. Capital and development expenditure pegged at Rs...
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1.31 lakh crore for railways in 2017-18. For transport sector, including railways, road and shipping, government provides Rs 2.41 lakh crore. Trade Infrastructure Export Scheme to be launched in 2017-18 where as Total allocation for infrastructure is Rs. 396135 crore.
(4)- Our focus is on Swacchh Railways
(5)- Service charges for ticket booking on IRCTC withdrawn
(6)- All coaches of Indian Railways will have biotiolets by 2018
(7)- Railways will implement end-to-end transport solutions for certain logistics
(8)- Four areas of priority for Railways: Passenger safety, capital works, cleanliness & financial
(9)- A new metro rail policy will be announced, this will open up new jobs for our youth
(10)- Five special tourism zones to be set up in partnership with states- more pax traffic for IR??
(11)- At least 25 stations expected to be awarded during 2017-18; 500 stations to be made disabled-friendly by providing lifts & escalators
(12)- Railway line of 3,500 km will be commissioned in 2017-18 as against 2,800 km in 2016-17
(13)- Historic merger of Union Budget and Railway Budget-An opprtunity to work towards integrated transport solutions in India by synergising Rail, Road, waterways, airlines mode of transportation.
(14)- Railway related state-run companies like Ircon, IRCTC to be listed on stock exchanges
(14)- FM introduced centralised defence travel system, where travel ticket can be booked by soldiers
(15)- Unmanned railway level crossings to be done away with by 2020. There are more than 9000 such crossings which are a threat to rail safety.
(16)- Railway tariffs to be fixed on the basis of cost, social obligation and competition
(17)- Government proposes Coach Mitra facility to redress grievances related to rail coaches
(18)- Dispute resolution in infrastructure projects in PPP mode will be institutionalised
(19)- Indian Railways aspires to feed about 7000 stations with solar power in the next few years
Threats to IR (its competitors):
(1)-Selected airports in Tier 2 cities to be taken up via PPP mode
(2)-Allocation for national highways stepped up to Rs 64,000 crore from Rs 57,676 crore
(3)- Total length of roads built from 2014-15 is about 140,000 km higher than previous 3 years
(4)- Airports Authority of India act to be amended to enable monetisation of land
Other interesting announcements:
(1) Out of 3.7 crore who filed tax returns in 2015-16, only 24 lakh persons showed income above Rs 10 lakh
(2) Of 76 lakh individuals who reported income of over Rs 5 lakh, 56 lakh are salaried
(3) After demonetisation on November 8 last year, deposit of between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 80 lakh made in 1.09 crore bank accounts at an average of Rs 5.03 lakh till December 30
(4) Due to demonitisation advance tax on personal income tax increased by 34.8%