Budget 2018: Rs 73 crore allocated for railway safety this year

New Delhi: Giving highest priority to safety in Railways, the Union Budget on Thursday allocated Rs 73,065 crore for safety in this financial year. Investments in the Railways were scaled up by almost three times to Rs 1,48,528 crore in 2018-19 as compared to o Rs 53,989 crore in 2013-14.

The total expenditure planned on safety activities, including Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) is Rs 68,725 crore and Rs 73,065 crore.

The RRSK will comprise Rs 5,000 crore from Capital (Budgetary Support), Rs 10,000 crore from Railway Safety Fund received as Railways’ share from Central Road fund and `5,000 crore from Railways’ revenue.

Apart from elimination of unmanned level crossings on all busy routes and shift to production of safer light weight coaches, there is focus on track renewal with the highest ever outlay ever.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley announced in his budget speech that 600 stations are to be developed with world class facilities.

Escalators would be provided at all stations with passenger footfall above 25,000 and stations and trains will be provided with wi-fi facility for information and entertainment. A Rail University would also be set up at Vadodara.

Mr Jaitely also announced Rs 11,000 crore for the expansion of the Mumbai suburban train network and added that the government planned to allocate `40,000 crore for the city’s rail network.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was quick to react. “Celebrate Mumbai!”, he tweeted.