To merge Railway budget with Union budget will help: MoS for Railways

The responsibility of fund raising will be with the centre after the merger

The decision of central government to merge the railway budget with the Union general budget will be very helpful for funding, said Union Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain.

Speaking to reporters in Chennai, he said that once the budgets merged, the responsibility of raising funds for the Railways will be with the central government. This would also help its functioning, he added.

The centre has decided to merge the Railway budget with the Union Budget from 2017, and constituted a five-member committeed to take the merger plans forward, according to reports.

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The Ministry has set up its new targets and is evolving its organisational structure to suit the changing times, he said. It is also creating new organizations and changing its process of delivery to bring in more transparency. It is also bringing in new organisations such as Railway Planning and Investment Organisation, Speacial Unit for Transportation Research and Analytics(SUTRA) for data analytics and Special Railway Establishment for Strategic Technology & Holistic Advancement (SRESTHA) for R&D.

Indian Railways is introducing new services and upgrading existing ones and will be providing long distance services: Hurnsafar - three tier air conditioned, Antodaya- Completely Unreserved and Tejas- a premium travel experience on Indian Railways.

The Passenger Earnings of Southern Railway during April- August 2016 was Rs 2022.31 crore compared to Rs 1,986.66 crore during the corresponding period last year.

By aggressive marketing and sustained campaign, the sale of tickets through UTS Mobile App has gone up to 2000 tickets per day recording a revenue of Rs 1.16 crore till August 2016, he added.