Railways to earn Rs 20,000 crore this FY: Lalu Prasad

New Delhi, Nov 8 (UNI) Railway Minister Lalu Prasad today expressed full confidence that his Ministry will earn around Rs 20,000 crore by the end of this financial year.

Addressing the Economic Editors Conference here, Mr Prasad said the top business schools in India and abroad are currently engaged in studying the magical transformation that has taken place in the Railways, leading to a cash surplus of more than Rs 13,000 crore in a short span of just 30 months.

''They are also finding it difficult to understand how the Railways will achieve a fund balance of Rs 16,000 crore and an operating ratio of less than 80 per cent without privatisation, retrenchment and a raise in passenger fares,'' he said, adding that ''some so-called intellectuals are worried whether this turn around has happend or not.'' ''Recently, a few reputed economists of this country even termed this turnaround as media hype and even said it was mere window dressing,'' he remarked.

Mr Prasad said this turn around had taken place due to increase in volumes, which reduced the unit cost, decreased tariffs, made railways competitive in the market, increased its market share and helped earn record profits.

''In fact, this unprecedented change is the result of optimum utilisation of physical and human assets, a tariff policy which is dynamic and market-driven, an investment policy which lays emphasis on prioritisation of investments in projects that can give maximum returns at the lowest cost and least time is the main case of this profit,'' he said.

The Minister noted that that the passenger business in the 1990s was increasing at three to four per cent and the freight segment at two to three per cent, whereas during the first six months of 2006, earnings from passenger business had increased by 13 per cent despite reduction in passenger fares across the classes.

''Similarly, our carriage earnings have increased by 46 per cent despite giving discount of 50 to 70 per cent in the parcel rates in the unpopular passenger trains,'' he said, adding that the freight earnings and total traffic income have also registered an increase of 14 per cent.

''Our vision that the modern corridors would be appropriate for a 25 to 30 tonnes axle load and longer double-stack container trains,'' Mr Prasad said, adding that once these corridors are constructed, goods trains would run at two to three times their present speed and passenger trains would also run at double their present speed.

He announced that the Railways have decided to convert the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata trains into overnight services.

Mr Prasad also announced that the Railways have already shortlisted 100 sites for hotels out of Railway properties and these would be developed either in joint ventures with private participation o r with private entreprenuers on lease basis.

The tenders for the same are expected very soon, he added.

Answering questions, he said the railway lines will be extended upto Katra, to facilitate visitors to Vaishno Devi. ''This is expected to be operational by February/March next year,'' he said.

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