Rail Budget 2013: From happiness to frustration, passengers react with gusto

Referring the government's decision to hike the Tatkal charges by Rs 15 on sleeper-class to Rs 100 on executive-class, Gupta said the low income group should have been spared from this hike.

Others passengers were satisfied with the announcement of the new e-ticketing system and most of them said that the present IRCTC website be made more user friendly.

Regarding security issues, H K Maheshwari, who has travelled in both sleeper and AC coaches, said no guards are deployed in the sleeper class whereas he could find them in the AC coaches.

Railway budget sets tone for austerity year

Reuters

India reined in spending on its vast but decrepit rail network on Tuesday, setting the tone for what is expected to be the most austere federal budget in years in two days' time as the government struggles to tame its fiscal deficit.

Gross budgetary support for the railways will rise nearly 8 percent to 260 billion Indian rupees ($4.82 billion) in the coming fiscal year, less than half the 20 percent increase that was allocated in last year's rail budget.gra

India's railway network is the world's fourth-largest but it has suffered from years of low investment and political meddling. The result is a creaking system plagued by delays, overcrowding and slow freight delivery times that sap the competitiveness of Asia's third-largest economy.

But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government faced the challenge of raising revenues to modernise the network without alienating voters ahead of an election due by May 2014. More than 20

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