CII welcomes Railway Budget

CHANDIGARH, Feb 25: Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) today welcomed the Union Railway Budget 1999-2000 presented by the Railway Min...

CHANDIGARH, Feb 25: Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) today welcomed the Union Railway Budget 1999-2000 presented by the Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, saying that the emphasis of the Indian Railways on upgradation of technology and its use to provide better facilities to passengers as well as customers was a step in the right direction.

In a statement issued here today, CII (northern region) said the use of technology in the railways to establish a Customer Care Institute, linking of reservation centres, establishment of "Rail Net", extension of the Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) to 44 centres, tele booking reservation at New Delhi and the plan to set up the National Train Enquiry System would help improve the facilities for passengers in 1999-2000, which has been declared the "Passenger Year" by the railways.

The confederation described the enhanced plan outlay of Rs 9,700 crore for 1999-2000 against Rs 8,755 crore in the previous year as "inadequate" in view of the massive need to strengthen infrastructure.

Story continues below this ad

However, it complimented the railways for having enhanced the gross traffic receipts from Rs 24,319 crore in 1996-97 to Rs 28,589 crore in 1997-98 – an increase of 17.6 per cent in a year of subdued economic activity. CII said the introduction of 14 new train services, the enhance outlay on track renewal (19 per cent) and enhanced outlay for new lines (58.7 per cent) and gauge conversion (10.6 per cent) were positive developments but the 5.1 per cent increase in the outlay for railway electrification was very marginal.

The railways needed to give urgent attention to improve efficiency and reduction in operating ratio which was still high at 90.1 per cent, it emphasised. Talking about the across the board hike of four per cent in freight charges, it said the increase would have a cascading impact and affect the industry at a time when the economy and the industry was facing a slowdown. "The impact could have been different if rationalisation of freight rates had been attempted on the lines of passenger fares. This would have reduced the subsidy on certain commodities, which is a long term objective of the railways," it observed.