All you need to know about Railways in Budget FY1718

On this first merged Budget after 92 years, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has announced to allocate Rs 1.31 lakh crore for the railways. The focus of this financial year will be on four prioritised areas : passenger safety, capital works, cleanliness and financial improvement of Indian Railways.

There would be a new safety fund introduced for Railways. Railway Ministry will focus on implementing  the proposed construction plans for which a concise timeline will be created. 

"All coaches of the Indian Railways will have bio-toilets by 2018," FM mentioned during his speech. There is a target to make 3500 km of modernised railway tracks which is 25 per cent more than the previous year's number of 2800 km."Rail safety fund with corpus of Rs 100,000 crore will be created over a period of five years," the FM added.

There would be many steps taken to launch dedicated trains for pilgrimage and tourism.Many JVs would be made for station redevelopment though which govt will improve conditions of over 500 stations. "Railways will implement end-to-end transport solutions for certain logistics," FM mentioned while stating his plans on expansion. 

"Our focus is on Swacchh Railways" he further aded. All coaches of Indian Railways will have bio-tiolets by 2018. There will be a single platform created to address complaints. 

The FM further concluded, the services charges on IRCTC ticket booking will be abolished to offer competitive advantage for online ticket booking. He mentioned that the online ticket booking is already standing at 58-60 per cent in this fiscal year, which is expected to face a robust growth further.

He further concluded that there would be a comprehensive new policy introduced for construction and innovation in this segment which in turn will create employment opportunities in the market. 

The bourses would also see IPO of IRCTC coming soon to raise fund and help to grow Indian Railways.