Marginal Fare Hike Proposed In Rail Budget. 75 New Express Trains proposed

Marginal Fare Hike Proposed In Rail Budget. 75 New Express Trains proposed

Mangaloretoday/ ITV

New Delhi, Mar 14: Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi today announced the first fare hike in nine years, by declaring a marginal fare hike across the board.

The increase will be by 2 paise per km for suburban and ordinary second class; 3 paise per km for mail/express second class; 5 paise per km for sleeper class; 10 paise per km for AC Chair Car, AC 3 tier and First Class; 15 paise per km for AC 2 tier and 30 paise per km for AC Ist clas, he said.Minimum fare and platform tickets will cost Rs. 5.

 

 

Trivedi announced  50 per cent  concession in fare in AC-2, AC-3, Chair Car & Sleeper classes to patients suffering from ‘Aplastic Anaemia’ and ‘Sickle Cell Anaemia’.

The minister announced extending of facility of travel by Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains to Arjuna Awardees.

Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi has proposed introduction of 75 new Express Trains, 21 Passenger Trains, 8 new MEMU services and 9 DEMU services.

He said the new services which also include extending the run of 39 trains and increasing frequency of 23 trains have been initiated in view of the needs and aspirations of the people.

He said the new Express Trains would include 9 AC Express Trains including double Decker Express Trains between Chennai-Bangalore and Habibganj-Indore.

The Railway Minister also announced introduction of special train for important places of Sikh pilgrimage.

He said “Guru Parikrama” would run on Amritsar-Patna-Nanded routes where large number of people from all sects visit the holy Sikh shrines.


Safety with modernisation is the mantra for railways in this Budget

With a spate of fatal accidents in the past few years, Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi Wednesday said safety would be the prime focus of his ministry during the 12th Five Year Plan, along with network expansion and modernisation.

dinesh 1"My focus will be safe safety, safety, safety," Trivedi told the Lok Sabha, presenting the rail budget for 2012-13. This was the decision he took as soon as he assumed charge of his ministry last year against the backdrop of an accident in Uttar Pradesh, the minister said.
"I vow to target zero deaths," he said in his maiden rail budget speech. "I also propose to set up an independent railway safety authority, as recommended by an expert group headed by the former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar."

The other four focus areas along with safety listed by the minister were consolidation, de-congestion and capacity augmentation of the network, modernisation and bringing down the operating ratio. He also stressed on better hygiene and higher speed of trains.

 Coming to specific proposals, Trivedi said 85 new line projects would be be taken up during the next fiscal year at a cost of Rs.6,870 crore, even as feasibility surveys would be conducted for another 114 lines.

He said an attempt will also be made to increase train speeds to 160 km per hour from around 90-100 km per hour. With that, he said, a journey from New Delhi to Kolkata will be brought down to 14 hours from 17 hours.