Indian Railway

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her fourth Budget on Tuesday (February 1). This will be the sixth joint Budget after the merger of the Rail Budget with the Union Budget in 2017. As per information, it is expected that the Centre will increase the Rail budget by 15 to 20 per cent this year. With the Assembly elections in five states round the corner, the Centre can announce new railway facilities for the common passengers.

These long haul trains provide a very effective solution to the problem of capacity constraints in critical sections. This train was launched on Thursday from Kondapalli station of Vijayawada division to Khurda division of East Coast Railway.

As part of this initiative, a proposal is being considered to merge Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) into the Indian Railways Construction Ltd. (IRCON) and also rolling stock entity Braithwaite and Company Ltd (BCL) with Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES). The proposals form part of a set of recommendations given by Sanjeev Sanyal, principal economic advisor in the finance ministry in a report titled Rationalisation of Government Bodies under MoR.

A railway spokesperson said that after detailed exercise and multiple rounds of discussion with the industry players, the bids for PPP in passenger train operations project were opened on Friday. "This is an entirely new attempt to bring world class trains through PPP in India," he said. "The Ministry of Railways will expeditiously complete the evaluation and decide the bids," he added.

Towards important infrastructure works, SCR has been sanctioned a staggering amount of Rs 7,222 crore for the year 2021 22 compared to Rs 7,024 crore for the year 2020 21, said an official. Major allocations include Rs 4,238 crore for doubling, third line and bypass line works, including Rs 2,195 crore for new lines capital, deposit, extrabudgetary resources and others.

The RLDA has received overwhelming response from national and international players as nine leading companies -- Arabian Construction Company, Adani Railways Transport Ltd, BIF IV India Infrastructure Holding (DIFC) Pvt Ltd, ISQ Asia Infrastructure Investments Pte Ltd, Anchorage Infrastructure Investments Holdings Ltd, Kalpataru Power Transmission Ltd, GMR Highways Ltd, Omaxe Limited and Elpis Ventures Pvt Ltd -- participated in the RFQ.

Presenting the Union Budget 2021-22, Sitharaman said, "I am announcing a record sum of Rs 1,10,055 crore for Railways of which Rs 1,07,100 crore is for capital expenditure only." She said the Railways will monetise DFC assets, its operations and maintenance after its commissioning.

According to RLDA, it conducted the online pre-bid meeting for the redevelopment of Ernakulam Railway Station in which calls for Request for Qualification (RFQ) took place and over 15 participants including Kalpataru Group, Anchorage Infrastructure, I Squared Capital, Adani Group, GMR Group, Omaxe Group and many more attended.

According to RLDA, the week-long event witnessed the participation of representatives from renowned companies such as Macquarie Group, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Brookfield, I Squared Capital, Mahindra Group, Mecef International, Infrastructure Asia, among 30-35 others.

In December last year, freight load totalled 118.13 million tonnes compared to 108.84 million tonnes in 2019, the Railways said in a statement. In this period, the Railways earned Rs 11,788.11 crore from freight load, an increase of Rs 757.74 crore or 6.87 per cent compared with earnings of Rs 11,030.37 crore during the corresponding period in 2019.