(a) whether the internal resources of the Railways are decreasing;
(b) if so, the reaction of the Government thereto; and
(c) the efforts made/proposed to be made by the Government to arrest the decreasing trend in internal resources and the outcome of the efforts made so far?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
(SHRI RAJEN GOHAIN)
(a) to (c): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
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STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (c) OF UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.84 BY SHRIMATI RAMA DEVI AND SHRI VIJAY KUMAR HANSDAK TO BE ANSWERED IN LOK SABHA ON 18.07.2018 REGARDING INTERNAL RESOURCES OF RAILWAYS.
(a) Yes, Madam. The internal resource generated by the Railways reduced to ` 10,113 cr and ` 3,206 cr (provisional) in 2016-17 and 2017-18 respectively as compared to ` 16,106 cr in 2015-16.
(b) This was due to the reason that working expenses comprising pay, allowances and pension grew sharply pursuant to implementation of the recommendations of 7th Central Pay Commission. Past experience has shown that during the years of implementation of Pay Commissions, the internal resource position of Railways is usually impacted adversely, but in years following, with the earnings picking up, the position gradually improves.
(c) Improvement in internal resource generation is attempted through maximization of railway earnings and minimization of revenue expenditure. Earnings enhancing measures, inter alia, include targeting progressively higher traffic throughput, effective and innovative marketing strategies to capture more and more traffic, creation of additional capacity and optimum utilization of the existing rail infrastructure, enhancement in productivity and efficiency, improvement of passenger interface, periodic rationalization of fare and freight rates and focus on increasing the share of non-fare revenue sources in Railways’ earnings. Expenditure control measures include strict economy and austerity measures, improved man-power planning, better asset utilization, inventory management, optimizing fuel consumption etc.
Accordingly an internal resource generation target of ` 13,490 cr has been kept in Budget Estimates 2018-19.
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