The Railway Budget for 2005-06 to be presented in Parliament on Saturday may leave second-class and suburban fares untouched, but affect a modest hike in upper class with certain sops for frequent travel and those travelling during the lean period.
Sleeper class, second-class, sub-urban passengers in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai will feel the imprint of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, who has been maintaining that there should be no increase in their fare, Rail Bhawan sources said.
However, the minister may go in for modest hike in upper class air-conditioned fares with a couple of sops like special concessional fare during the lean season (July-August-September) and a frequent traveller scheme.
The Frequent Traveller Scheme is akin to air travel where travellers after earning certain points will get a free ticket in a bid to attract passengers for the upper classes.
In view of the fact that the railway minister has demanded Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) additional budgetary support to support its integrated modernisation plan and the Planning Commission having not agreeing to that, a gap of Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) is likely to be covered up in three ways -- hiking passenger fare and freight, market borrowings and levying a cess.
The Planning Commission has indicated a hike in the budgetary support to the tune of Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion), while Railways was poised to earn Rs 1,500 crore in excess of the budgetary target.
Railways have been advised to go for market borrowings, reduce cross subsidisation on passenger fares and impose cess to raise additional resources for its modernisation programmes in the budget.
These suggestions were made during the various meetings the railway ministry had with the Prime Minister's Office, the finance ministry and the Planning Commission.
The Railways wanted government to provide budgetary support saying it had an outgo of Rs 5,735 crore (Rs 57.35 billion) to meet the social cost. But the government is understood to have made it clear any social cost incurred by Railways has to be met through its resources.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has cleared five more projects for the Railways which would be announced by the railway minister during his budget presentation.
Though, it was not known as to what the projects were but going by the earlier announcements of the railway minister they may include an axle plant at his Lok Sabha Constituency Chhapra and a railway sleeper plant at Madhepura in Bihar.
Lalu is likely to announce two long-distance trains between Delhi and Howrah and Delhi and Chennai with speeds of up to 150 km per hour as also to launch four freight trains at a speed of 100 km per hour on high-density routes connecting the four metros.
Meanwhile, the much hyped dedicated high speed 'bullet train,' with speeds of 250-300 km per hour, between Mumbai-Ahmedabad has been shelved for now in view of its high cost of the order of Rs 35,000 for just 500 km, which the government sources said was not feasible in country like India.
Concerned over the alarming rise of AIDS cases in the country the ministries of railways and health and family welfare have decided to jointly run five pairs of 'Red-Ribbon' Express trains to create awareness about the dreaded disease and an announcement was likely to be made by the minister.
The minister may also announce opening up of the Container Corporation of India to competition by announcing certain container services by private sector, meant opening this sector to private players to end monopoly of the CONCOR.
He may also unfold a new catering policy by offering a 'stiffer competition, quality control, effectiveness, removal of monopoly of catering units, increasing reservations for SCs/STs/OBCs minorities (for the first time) up to 50 per cent in the catering sector.'
Unemployed graduates would also get certain per cent of reservation in catering services, they said adding that these allotments were subject to periodic review as also lifting a ceiling of Rs 3 crore (Rs 30 million) required for bidding for a catering tender.