Good news! No hike in railway fares, announces Suresh Prabhu

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Published on: 25 Feb 2016 6:56 AM GMT
Good news! No hike in railway fares, announces Suresh Prabhu
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New Delhi: Opening the Pandora box of hopes and expectations, Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu while presenting the rail budget on Thursday did not announce any hike in the railway fares.

Highlights of the Rail budget:

  • Passengers will be able to request for cleaning of toilets in train through an SMS
  • Clean My Coach service to be made on a pan India level.
  • Overnight double-decker trains to be introduced on business travel routes
  • Porters (coolies) will now be called as ‘sahayaks’. They will be trained in soft skills
  • Disabled enabled toilet in 11 Class-A stations this year
  • To introduce Humsafar Express, fully air-conditioned 3rd AC service with an optional service for meals
  • To introduce Antyodaya Express, a long-distance, super fast train for common men to be operated on densely populated route or business routes.
  • Children’s menu, baby foods, baby boards to be made available for traveling mother
  • WiFi services at 100 stations this year, 400 more stations over next two years
  • Installation of 2,500 water vending machines at railway stations
  • Reserved middle bays in coaches for women security
  • Introduced 1,780 automatic ticket vending machines, mobile apps, GoIndia smart cards for cashless purchase of UTS and PRS ticket
  • 311 CCTV cameras installed
  • World’s first Bio-vacuum toilet developed by Indian Railways is being used in Bibrugarh Rajdhani express.
  • Enhanced capacity of e-ticketing system from 2,000 tickets per minute to 7,200 per minute.
  • Work in process for Wifi services at railway stations

  • New train between Varanasi and Delhi with modernised coaches has been initiated
  • To contribute to Swachh Bharat 17,000 bio toilets will be provided by the close of FY17
  • Rs 8.5 lakh crore will be spent over 5 years for modernisation of railway infrastructure
  • 1,600 km of electrification this year and 2,000 km in the next year have been proposed
  • By 2020, plans to eliminate all unmanned level crossing
  • Over 1 lakh calls made every day to get feedback from passengers. Turned social media into feedback mechanism

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