Budget with Ambitious Plan but Less outlay

Dear Comrades!

Finance Minister Shri Arun Jetely presented his 5th General Budget and 2nd Railway Budget on 1st February.  Finance Minister presented Rail Budget with annual plan for Rs. 1, 48,528 Crores, almost three times as against 53989 in four years ago.  Finance Minister has given highest priority to safety; total expenditure planned on safety activities is Rs. 73065 Crores in 2018-19. (BE)

 The target for railway electrification has been fixed to the entire network.  The decision to develop 600 stations, improvement in suburban services, doubling of railway lines and many more projects for capacity augmentation has been announced.  For all these announcements the budgets allocation from GBS is very meager i.e. 53,060 crores, internal resources 11500 crores, IRFC bonds Rs. 28500 crores, LIC 26000 crores, through PPP 27000 crores etc.  It is quite evident that railways had to borrow a huge amount and Govt. has not provided sufficient amount to meet the challenges of such ambitious plan.

 On the other hand, nothing has been provided to railwaymen in this Budget neither from Railway Ministry nor from General Budget.  Budget has not provided any relief in Income Tax nor the demand of minimum wage, fitment formula or NPS has been met.

 The salaried class has been very disappointed with this budget and seems to be quite agitated.

With Best Regards,                               

E-magazine AIRF FEB 2018 has been uploaded below:-

Download Link Here