The Minister of Railway Nitish Kumar presentend a passenger friendly budget in the Lok Sabha on February 26. Passengers fares have not been hiked despite the massive subsidies. Upper class train travel has been made cheaper- Mail Express, Rajdhanis, Shatabdis and Jana Shatabdies are the beneficiaries. Other proposal are 50 new trains and 23,500 new railway posts, including 20,000 in the group 'D' category. The frequency of 13 existing trains has been increased and destinations of another 24 trains has been extended. There will also be 225 km of new lines. On freight front, the total number of categories has been reduced from 32 to 27. As a result, the ratio between freight charges for the highest and lowest classes drops from 3.3 to 2.8. This rationalisation will reduce freight charges for fuel items and core commodities:petrol, high-speed diesel, furnace oil, crude oil, naphtha, LPG, compressed gas, lubricating oil, iron and steel, pig iron, iron scrap, cement sheets, petroleum coke and soda ash. Lower charges will also apply to molasses, refined vegetable oil and sulphur acid. Customers will not henceforth be required to pay extra for payement on delievry. There are concessions for all traffic booked upto 90 km. The Newspaper will continue to be charged at the lowest scale.
The Budget projects an increased passenger earning despite the slew of concessions and holding the fare line. Passenger fare receipts for 2003-2004 have been estimated at Rs. 12,918 crore including Rs2,311 crore from the safety fund, Rs. 2,630 crore internal revenue generation.