Railway Budget 2010-2011

Mamata Banerjee will present the Railway Budget 2010-11 tomorrow wherein it is expected that the passenger fares will have no hike. However, there may be some changes in the freight tariff that has to be undertaken in view of the drying revenues.

People of West Bengal can look forward to greater facilities in the upcoming Budget like the introduction of new routes and higher frequency of presently running trains. Mamata Banerjee seems to make the best of her efforts to please the people of her mother state especially when the assembly polls are approaching.

Though this year had been considerably good for the Indian Railways, yet it scored badly in terms of transfer of goods, vis a vis truckers. As per the statistical data, railway earning has gone high up 8.6 percent that contributed to Rs. 70, 561.65 crore which is much higher than the previous fiscal earning that recorded Rs. 64943.32 crore.

Though the earning both in terms of the passenger revenue and the goods revenue went high, India Railways’ contribution in the movement of goods, vis a vis truckers, has gone down to 20.89 percent against 24.07 percent in 2001-02.

It is quite obvious that that the freight fares which form the main source of earning for the Indian Railway has to be channelized to get the higher share of freight.