Budget Highlights

Important Budget Announcements directly pertaining to Western Railway

Mumbai Suburban

1. Setting of EMU/ MEMU Production Unit with 5000 coach capacity at Kanchrapara.

2. Introduction of energy efficient Railway system for providing connectivity to existing suburban system.

3. Additional platform at Borivali station with approximate cost of Rs.14.5 crore.

4. Adarsh stations - Andheri, Bandra, Bhayandar, Borivali, Charni Road, Churchgate, Dadar, Dahanu Road, Goregaon, Malad, Marine Lines, Mira Road, Mumbai Central (local), Naigaon, Okha, Santacruz, Saphale, Vangaon and Virar. Adarsh stations are stations with basic facilities such as drinking water, adequate toilets, catering services, waiting rooms and other basic facilities are universally available.

5. Introduction of 'Izzat Scheme' - It is a new concession scheme called Izzat in which an uniformly priced monthly season ticket of Rs. 25 would be available free of all surcharges for travel upto 100kms. for members of the unorganised sector with monthly income not exceeding Rs. 1500/-.

Non-suburban, New trains -

• Mumbai-Delhi "Yuva Train"
• Mumbai -Ahmedabad AC non-stop (Tri weekly)Douronto Train service
• Mumbai-Jodhpur-Bikaner Superfast
• Mumbai-Jodhpur Weekly Express
• Veraval-Mumbai Link Service (Daily)
  
• Extended Service - 2993/ 2994 Mumbai-Jaipur Express upto Delhi (Tri Weekly)

All over Western Railway

New trains - Gandhidham-Howrah Superfast (Weekly)

Ajmer-Bhopal Express via Ratlam (Daily)

Extended Service-9269/ 9270 Porbandar-Bapudham Motihari upto Muzzafarpur (Bi-Weekly)

1471/ 1472 Jabalpur-Bhopal Express upto Indore (Daily)

Change in Frequency -

2957/ 2958 Ahmedabad-New Delhi Rajdhani Express will now run daily.

2905/ 2906 Porbandar-Howrah via Hapa will now run three days in a week.

Projects -

Doubling of tracks - 8km. long Gandhidham-Adipur with approximate cost of Rs. 24 crores.

12km. long Gandhidham-Kandla Port with approximate 31 crores.

Rajkot-Veraval section

New Lines - Ratlam-Banswara-Dungarpur - Rail connectivity to be processed

Gauge conversion - Bhuj-Naliya with extension upto Vayur with approximate

cost of Rs. 80 crores.

Introduction of multi-functional complexes at Gandhidham, Indore, Ujjain and

Vadodara station premises for providing rail user's facilities like shopping,

food stalls and restaurants, PCO/ STD, ISD/ Fax booths, medicine and variety

stores, budget hotels, underground parking, etc.,

WR’s INTENSIVE TICKET CHECKING DRIVE

50 lakhs collected as fine

Mumbai: As per instructions of General Manager, Western Railway has started a massive drive for ticket checking to prevent unauthorized travelers both in suburban and non suburban sections.

In the month of June 2009 31 special fortress checks were conducted in which more than 5000 irregular commuters were found and an amount of Rs. 11 lakh were recovered as fine. For this purpose, checking staff was deployed at selected chosen station from corner to corner covering all the platforms, foot over bridges, entries and exits. These checks were carried during peak hours and in moving train also on suburban section.

More over a special flying squad at the head quarter of Western Railway were specially deployed during summer season in the month of April and May. This squad has broken its own record by collecting railways dues of Rs. 50 lakhs from irregular/ ticketless passengers. A member of this squad Shri P.K.Jha, set a bench mark for other ticket checking staff by collecting Rs. 7.5 lakhs and detecting more than 1500 cases during the period.

EXTENSION OF STOPPAGE

Ministry of Railways has decided to extend the stoppage of the following trains upto 30/9/2009 at the following stations:-

Train No	Train	Station
2993/2994	Bandra(T)-Jaipur Garib Rath Exp	Bharuch
2955/2956	Mumbai-Jaipur Superfast Exp	Ankleshwar,Meghnagar
9017/9018	Bandra(T)-Jamnagar Saurashtra Janta Exp	Kosamba
240	Ahmedabad-Borivali Passenger	Nabipur
1453/1454	Ahmedabad-Nagpur Express	Bharuch
285/286	Indore-Chhindwarapanch Vally Passenger	Kalapipal
2961/2962	Mumbai Central-Indore Avantika Exp	Bamania
1087/1088	Pune Veraval	Navagarh
9051/9052	Valsad-Sonpur Shramik Exp	Vyara
2945/2946	Surat-Varanasi Tapti Ganga Exp	Vyara
2655/2656	Ahmedabad-Chennai Navjeevan Exp	Vyara
9911/9912	Ahmedabad-Mahesana Exp	Jhulasan
2903/2904	Mumbai Central-Amritsar Golden Temple Exp	Meghnagar

Railway Budget pulls market 255 pts ahead

Mumbai : The populist Railway Budget allowed market players to book profit in companies which would benefit from an increased outlay for rail tracks and wagon purchases. Incidentally, these stocks had risen by 10-50 per cent in the past few weeks.

Railway-related stocks such as Titagarh Wagons, Kalindee Rail Nirman, Texmaco, BEML, Kernex Microsystems and Hind Rectifiers fell by around 1-5 per cent. Only Container Corporation and Stone India saw significant gains of over 4 per cent.

"Even though some of these companies would benefit because of purchase of wagons and increased outlay for rail tracks, their stocks were fully priced on this news," said Kashmira Mehta, an institutional dealer at Mumbai-based brokerage CD EquiSearch.

However, the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex closed in the green.

TAKING STOCK
Company	Share price on BSE in Rs		% Change
	July 2	July 3
Titagarh Wagons	439.30	417.35	-5.00
Kalindee Rail Nirman	223.55	212.40	-4.99
Texmaco	120.45	114.45	-4.98
BEML	1081.75	1033.00	-4.51
BHEL	2149.90	2182.05	1.50
Container Corp	971.45	1010.35	4.00
Stone India	44.95	47.15	4.89

Yesterday, the US market had closed in the red after the US jobless data showed the unemployment rate at a 26-year high. Both the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq plummeted over 2.5 per cent. As a result, most of the Asian markets were flat in early trades on Friday.

The Sensex spurted 254.56 points, or 1.74 per cent, to close at 14,913.05. The CNX Nifty closed at 4,424, up 1.73 per cent.

"The Railway Budget was the mood changer for the day. Markets mainly rallied following some of the positives such as the proposal for public-private participation for the development of railway infrastructure," said Deven Choksey, managing director, K R Choksey.

The market breadth was marginally positive. Out of 2,686 shares traded on BSE, 1,341 advanced (49.93 per cent), 1,263 declined (47.02 per cent) and 82 (3.05 per cent) remained unchanged.

Among the major gainers in the Sensex stocks, HDFC soared 7.74 per cent. Other gainers included Tata Steel (4.32 per cent), Mahindra & Mahindra (3.59 per cent), Reliance Infrastructure (3.17 per cent), ICICI Bank (3.05 per cent) and Jaiprakash Associates (3.03 per cent).

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) rose by 2.25 per cent on Railway Minister's declaration about setting up a 1,000-MW power plant in the tribal area of Andhra Pradesh. The power major is reportedly in talks with Japan Bank for International Co-operation for a loan of $500 million for power projects.

Hero Honda fell the most at 1.08 per cent. Hindalco (0.95 per cent), Sterlite (0.74 per cent), Reliance Communications (0.24 per cent) and ITC (0.03 per cent) were the other losers.

All the sectoral indices ended in green on Friday. The Bankex (2.19 per cent), capital goods (1.90 per cent), power (1.84 per cent), healthcare (1.80 per cent) and realty (1.18 per cent) were the prominent movers on BSE.

According to provisional BSE data, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of shares worth Rs 210.82 crore and domestic institutional investors were net buyers of Rs 298.58 crore on Friday.

Related stories

T N Ninan: Not a fast track

What the railways need most of
all is management transfusion

New Delhi : If you want to understand what has been happening to the railways, forget Mamata Banerjee’s railway budget, and look at some long-term trends. The length of the routes on which the railways carry goods and people has remained virtually unchanged since 1980; indeed, the carrying capacity of all railway wagons has come down since then by about 10 per cent; the number of locomotives has come down by 25 per cent; and the number of railway employees has dropped 10 per cent. If the system has grown nevertheless (freight traffic has trebled and passenger traffic quadrupled), it is because broad gauge has replaced almost all the metre and narrow gauge lines, and double lines have replaced many single lines (so that traffic can move in both directions, without one coming in the way of the other). Also, bigger wagons have replaced smaller ones, there has been a switch from steam and diesel locomotives to diesel and electric engines with superior traction, and journey length for passengers has increased dramatically. But while there has been some improvement in signaling systems, the average speed of freight movement has managed to inch up to just 23 km per hour. The pattern of traffic has changed very little too; seven high-bulk, low-value commodities (like coal and iron ore, foodgrain and cement) account for more than 90 per cent of all railway freight.

Growth achieved by running the same or fewer, but heavier, trains carrying bulk goods has its limits, if the average speeds cannot be increased dramatically. And all the announcements of izzat tickets, janata meals, yuva trains, adarsh stations and duranto services will not change the picture. At some stage, the railways (with annual investment now of Rs 40,000 crore, and total capital stock of close to Rs 200,000 crore) have to transform themselves into a more modern transport system; it is this transformation which the railways have failed to achieve. Containerisation with door-to-door service, which would dramatically expand the range of goods carried, has made slow progress. The new freight corridors were supposed to be transformational, but many years after they were first mooted no one has any idea of cost and time schedule, or indeed viability. Fast inter-city trains would be transformational, but are ruled out when the system cannot increase average speeds; indeed, the “super-fast” trains of three decades ago run slower now than they did then. Changing the travel experience would be transformational, and bring people back from energy-inefficient airlines, but even the project to make a multi-functional showpiece of the New Delhi station has failed to make headway.

It does not help that the system’s finances are on a slippery slope. The net revenue, post dividend, has dropped by a stunning 80 per cent in two years, from Rs 13,431 crore in 2007-08 to the Rs 2,642 crore projected for the current year. That drop is explained entirely by the Pay Commission, which over these two years will have cost an additional Rs 28,000 crore. Even without the Commission, employee costs have been by far the fastest growing of all costs in the railways. If staff costs are not pared, and the galloping pension bill brought under control, the railways run the danger of ceasing to generate any net surplus.

You wouldn’t guess most of this from Ms Banerjee’s 38-page peroration, although she did mention that the optic fibre project that she had highlighted in her railway budget eight years ago has made no headway. Part of the problem is an archaic financial system that does not even calculate depreciation properly. What the railways need most of all is management transfusion, and that can only come through corporatisation. Any chance of that happening? Of course not.

The Real Railway Budget - anyone interested ?

Between 2007-8 (actual figures) and 2009-10 (estimated) IR's surplus is expected to deteriorate by 80 % from Rs.134.31 bn to Rs. 26.42 bn. The appropriation to pension funds is going to almost double from Rs. 80 odd billion to Rs.134 bn. Just to put it into context - 2009-10's pension bill is going to equal 2007-08's surplus!

Working expenses will grow by 53 %, miscellaneous receipts growth will be marginal, while gross traffic receipts (the bread & butter) will only grow by 23 %. Hence the operating ratio (expenses/revenue) will decline from 75.9 to 92.5 and the surplus appropriated to IR's development fund in 2009-10 will be a paltry Rs. 2000 cr (Rs. 20 bn or just US$ 400 mn).

Clearly IR is headed for a funds crunch and will require massive off-budget support for all its investments in freight corridors, new lines, loco factories and what not. So why did Mamata Didi not raise fares?

Well freight rates are already very high (unbearably so, say IR's customers) and were last increased in December 2008, not so long ago. Besides IR is adept at slapping additional charges and reclassifying commodities several times during the course of a year. So we could see some "adjustments" as the year unfolds, especially if crude prices go through the roof once again. However, whether these measures will result in useful extra revenue or only increase customer flight is moot. This is because IR has milked the freight car far too hard and for far too long.

Thus Mamatadi has really no excuse for not raising passenger fares (esp Sleeper Class) sharply, except that she is a hard-core socialist (i.e. populist)politician. But I think she too has seen the writing on the wall and the only reason she didn't raise the fares on Friday is that she would much rather do them later, without all the hoopla that surrounds the budget. Champs of the Common Man like Didi and Lalu just cannot afford to announce such "anti-people" moves when the entire nation is watching them on Budget Day. They would much rather announce it on a different, ordinary day, ideally when everyone's attention is fixed on something else!

Much is being made of utilising IR's surplus land to generate additional revenue. But land on it's own is of little use - who will build on or add value to this land for the revenue to start pouring in? The entire Real estate sector is in the doldrums, and IR has scarce funds for its own projects much less for commercial property development. And industry will not want to lease the land to set up factories and the like unless it is sure it can be leased for a minimum of 99 years, and IR will not ask for the land to be given back to say lay a third line or something. So, don't expect too much relief from the land option.

So clearly tough decisions will have to be made sooner or later: hiking passenger fares substantially, cutting costs, losing surplus staff, closing lines, avoiding waste (just how many zomes are there now?) and the like. Question is whether all this is possible during Mamata's reign.I doubt it very much - she's already announced 57 new trains!

And finally; all the papers mentioned the fact that Didi drove to Parliament in her ordinary Maruti Zen. Well, she is not my favourite politician but there is no doubt that she has no use for the trappings of office or the accumulation of pelf. One of the pink papers has a picture of Didi being driven to the House in her sans AC Zen with the window rolled down . What is amusing is that squashed uncomfortably in the back are the two junior ministers K H Muniyappa and E Ahamed. I wonder when either gentleman last sat in an un-airconditioned Zen. Surely, it must have been before they joined politics!

-Mohan Bhuyan