Railway Budget 2019: Safest year for Indian Railways! Today, Union Finance and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal presented the Railway Budget 2019, which is now a part of Union Budget 2019. While no significant announcements were made, the biggest fact that stood out in the Railway Budget 2019, was that it was the safest year in Indian Railways’ history. Interestingly, ahead of the presentation of Railway Budget 2019, the Railway Ministry successfully completed the task of eliminating all the unmanned level crossings, which was a big reason for train accidents. This feat was achieved by Indian Railways on 31 January 2019, when the last unmanned level crossing was removed successfully.
Read! Railway Budget 2019 Highlights: Vande Bharat Express train the ‘Make in India’ leap for speed, service, and safety
In this year’s Railway Budget 2019, the total borrowing for capital expenditure has been pegged at Rs 1.58 lakh crore. The national transporter over the last months has been emphasizing on upgrading infrastructure in order to ensure safety in operations of the vast railway network, spread across the country. Besides the year being the safest for the national transporter, the Finance Minister also announced that Indian Railways has gone beyond incremental improvements. In his Railway Budget 2019 speech, Goyal also stated that the world-class indigenous Train 18, recently named as Vande Bharat Express, will be a flag bearer of speed, service, and safety. Also, all infrastructure sectors have performed well, he added in his Railway Budget 2019 speech.
From the financial year 2017-2018, the Railway Budget was merged with the General Budget. The decision by Modi government to merge both the Budgets was based on the recommendations of the committee headed by Member of NITI Aayog, Bibek Debroy. The merging decision of both, the Railway Budget and the General Budget was also based on a separate paper on ‘Dispensing with the Railway Budget’ presented by Debroy along with Kishore Desai.