The Government, with the help of the Make in India initiative, and its effort to privatize the railway sector, could allocate funds for upgrading the technological infrastructure of the Indian Railways.
For the upcoming budget, the railways should see more attention improving the safety measures so that the accidents, such as fire accidents, that have seen an increase during the past year could see a significant downfall — from three to zero. It could also look at further reducing the number of accidents caused by unmanned railway crossings.
Some of the key developments that the Indian Railways could look at it he upcoming financial budget would be the monetization of the land and redeveloping its stations to equip them with the newer technologies and facilities, such as quickening up the process of allocation of tickets in crowded stations.
Indian Railways will have 7,650 coaches and 13,700 wagons for the current fiscal year, for which an amount of over Rs 6,114 crores have been allocated.
The railway business, over the years, is losing its fleet of passengers and freight, but compared to air transport, it is still the cheapest mode of transport. Working on pre-existing facilities is an area where the Government could look into, against increasing the fare, which could turn out to be a blow against the highly competitive air prices when it comes to the costlier air conditioned tickets.
The earnings of the railways have been lagging and operational expenses are seen to be climbing up, so the Government could look at innovative measures in the goods and passenger segments to retain more travelers and customers.
Besides passenger safety and upgrading the railway stations to monetize them, the new railway budget should address the need of hygiene in the railway infrastructure, improvising on the quality of the food that is served in the trains, and making sure that the toilets are upgraded and are cleaned regularly.
Indian Railways is the backbone of Indian transport, and an upgrade to it would act as a boost to the larger economic structure, the components of which are run on these rails, and which indeed seems to be the need of this hour.
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