Union Budget 2020: 150 private trains, refrigerated coaches proposed

A paltry increase of 3% for Railways; govt aggressively pushes PPP development

More private trains, solar plants near railway tracks, refrigerated coaches for transport perishable goods, are the highlights of the railway ministry proposal in the Union Budget.

The national transporter, which already runs two privately-operated trains through IRCTC, is working on to run 150 passengers trains in the coming days.

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The railways held a stakeholders meeting on this and several top global players have keen to participate in operating trains, Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav told reporters here.

Besides, the railways also plans to aggressively push the station development project through PPP.

With an aim to build a seamless national cold supply chain for “perishables”, Sitharaman also proposed setting up a “Krishi Rail” through PPP arrangements. There will be refrigerated coaches in express and freight trains as well, she said.

The budget also proposed setting up of a large solar power capacity alongside the rail tracks on land owned by the railways.

The railways got a budgetary allocation of Rs 70,000 crore and an outlay for capital expenditure amounting to Rs 1.61 lakh crore, a paltry 3% more than the previous year.

In 2019-2020, the capital expenditure (revised estimate) was Rs 1.56 lakh crore, which was 17.2 % more than the capex of 2018-2019.

The total receipts of the railways, comprising earnings from passenger goods, sundry other heads and railway recruitment boards are targeted to increase by 9.5 % in the Budget Estimates (BE) of 2020-21, over the Revised Estimates (RE) of 2019-20.