The cash-strapped railways have asked the Planning Commission to increase their gross budgetary support (GBS) by R4,000 crore for 2012-13. Railway board chairman Vinay Mittal sent a letter to Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on July 17, seeking more funds to meet the national transporter?s increased expenditure on projects like dedicated freight corridor and the coach factory in Rae Bareli.
According to a railway ministry official, the cost for these two projects has increased by over R2,200 crore for this year. ?Besides, we need money for new lines and expansion of our network. For which, the present GBS doesn?t suffice,? the official said.
The government had approved R24,000 crore GBS for the railways in the budget announced in March against the railways initial demand for R46,000 crore. In the letter, railways have told the plan panel that ?the GBS allocation was R22,000 lesser than what was required.
The cost of many major projects including dedicated freight corridors, world class stations, coach factories have gone up significantly due to delay. For instance, the Eastern and Western dedicated freight corridors (DFC) projects, the cost has been revised from R28,000 crore in 2007 to around R47,000 crore now. Though railway officials maintain that the projects will be commissioned by 2017, the fund deficit may pose another challenge.
The railway official said that if the fare hike was not rolled back, there might not have been a need to seek more funds. The former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi had marginally increased the train fares in second class mail and express fares, sleeper class, 1st class, all AC class travel and Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duranto and Janshatabdi trains. The hike was expected to get R4,000 extra revenue for the railways. However, the hike was opposed by Tirnamool chief Mamata Banerjee and was rolled back after the removal of Trivedi as railway minister.
The railways? expenditure during the 12th five year plan is likely to grow many folds.
It proposes to invest R7.35 lakh crore during the 12th five year plan as against R1.92 lakh crore during 11th five year plan.
Of the R7.35 lakh crore, the railways expect a gross budgetary support of R2.5 lakh crore and another R30,000 crore from the government to support national projects.