Modi govt's maiden rail budget

Union Railways Minister D.V.Sadananda Gowda and Manoj Sinha with Railway Budget outside parliament house in New Delhi. "Going to present my maiden budget as a rail minister of India today. Hope we are able to meet public expectations," Gowda, former chief minister of Karnataka who represents the Udupi Chikmagalur constituency in Lok Sabha, tweeted.

Union Railways Minister D.V.Sadananda Gowda and Manoj Sinha with Railway Budget outside parliament house in New Delhi. Highlights: Cabinet nod to be sought for allowing FDI in Railways, barring in operations Railways plans to increase speed of trains to 160 to 200 km per hour in nine select sectors Bullet train proposed on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector Govt to launch diamond quadrilateral of high speed trains, allots Rs 100 crore for the same. Govt to make e-procurement compulsory for procurements over Rs 25 lakh

Union Railways Minister D.V.Sadananda Gowda and Manoj Sinha with Railway Budget outside parliament house in New Delhi. Highlights: Bulk of future projetcs to be funded by PPP model 4,000 women RPF constables to be recruited for women's coaches Govt proposes to introduce pre-cooked ready-to-eat meals of reputed brands in a phased manner Proposes Wi-Fi services in all A1 stations; All trains to be Wi-Fi enabled Govt targets to become the largest freight carrier in the world

Union Railways Minister D.V.Sadananda Gowda outside parliament house in New Delhi. Allocation of Rs 100 crore was made for developing high speed train system and Mumbai-Ahmadabad currently under feasibility studies by Japan International Coo-operation Agency will be the first route to get a bullet train. Gowda also called for the surplus funds of the Public Sector Undertakings under Ministry of Railways to be used for Railways infrastructure creation. Photos by Sanjay Sharma

Union Railways Minister D.V.Sadananda Gowda at Rail Bhavan before leaving for Parliament to present the Rail Budget 2014-15 in New Delhi. Ahead of the first railway budget by the Modi government being presented today, passengers across the nation are expecting better services that are easy on the pocket. Shibudeep Mukherjee, a passenger from Kolkata, told ANI, "Service needs to be good. The ladies and small children are forced to stand. There should be more security. These should be taken care of. Local trains also never run on time."

The first rail budget of the current NDA government tried to strike a balance between the twin conflicting objectives of making profits like a commercial enterprise and yet serving its ‘social obligations.