New announcements every year is what rail passengers from Mumbai feels on the Rail Budget. However, they keep wondering about what happened to last year’s announcements

Railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, announcing his maiden railway budget, made a host of promises for Mumbai. Additional 75 train services, elevated corridors from Churchgate to Virar on the Western Line, 12-coach rakes for the Harbour Line were among the prominent ones. Experts, however, have lambasted the minister for ignoring and not updating on the slew of promises made last year by his party chief and the then minister Mamata Banerjee. They called it a “disappointing budget” for Mumbai.
 
“The minister neither gave any update on the last year’s promised projects nor the balance sheet. He made new announcements. This year 75 new train services are promised for the suburban section. But is there any rake available? Out of 32 additional trains promised last year, for the Central line, only two have started. There is no announcement on safety measures like giving compensation to victims of local train accidents. He talked about development of stations through PPP (public-private partnership). This promise was made last year, as well. Even there is no rationale behind fare hike. Thankfully local commuters won’t be much affected by the hike,” said Madhu Kotian, president, Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh.
 
“There were promises of running anti-collision device on three grounds, a bullet train to Baroda, Gujarat. What happened to these promises?” he asked.

Passenger fares have been increased by 2 paise per km for suburban and ordinary second class; 3 paise per km for mail/express second class; 5 paise per km for sleeper class; 10 paise per km for AC Chair Car, AC 3 tier and First Class; 15 paise per km for AC 2 tier and 30 paise per km for AC I.  Minimum fare and platform tickets will now cost Rs5.

Subhash Gupta, president, Yatri Sangh Mumbai told Moneylife that, “What is the use of hiking train fares when a little revenue will be generated from it. The minister announced some projects which are good for Mumbai. But the bigger question of implementing all the projects remains unanswered. Last year, the minister announced that the ministry will form a committee to look after implementation of various projects. This year, he did not mention anything about it.”

Passenger associations have, however welcomed the announcement of developing a new coach complex near Panvel in Navi Mumbai and coach maintenance complex at Kalamboli.
 
Mumbai-based transport experts feel that the essential requirements of Mumbai’s train commuters are not covered in the budget. “Considering the commuter population of Mumbai, the budget should have adequate allocation for providing escalators for commuters, quick disbursement from the station, medical assistance for victims of train accidents within three minutes of the occurrence of such an event and raising the platform height at par with the coach and platform for easy boarding. Nothing was mentioned about these things in the budget,” Sudhir Badami, a transport export told Moneylife.