It’s that time of the year again! Railway Budget 2017 will be out tomorrow and will be presented by the Union Finance Minister, Mr.Arun Jaitley. This is going to be his third budget session in the parliament. Also, an interesting aspect of this Rail Budget, is that this will be the first time in the history of 92 years when there won’t be any separate rail budget and the provisions will be a part of the main Union Budget.
What’s more
In lieu of the upcoming Rail Budget, many leading market agencies conducted a number of polls on different parameters such as fare system, rail services, effect of demonetization on train tickets and other relevant tidbits.
The Findings
LocalCircles, the biggest citizen engagement platform in the country, conducted a poll on the Flexi Fare System and the common opinion is that people want to have the Flat Fare increase as compared to the Flexi system for premium trains. The Flexi Fare System was introduced on Sep 7, 2016 and aims at allowing user to book train tickets, at last minute on a 50% fare hike for premium trains. Once the final chart is prepared, one can avail the vacant seats by paying 50% additional charges on the base fare of tickets.
According to a poll conducted by Make Railways Better Circle, 73 percent citizens want the Flexi Fare System to go and they are willing to pay for hike on a Flat Fare system. However, 27% said that they support the existing Flexi Fare System for booking train tickets. The poll was conducted across 240 districts of India and more than 8000 citizens were part of this poll.
In another interesting poll survey, people are looking for features like safety of train passengers, better railway infrastructure, improved amenities like cleaner coaches and toilets, improvement of railway stations across India and passenger convenience from the Rail Budget 2017-2018. The Railway Ministry would also be focusing on bringing more passengers to the air-conditioned coaches, a segment which the Railways is losing to airlines.
The Hindu also conducted a poll across 4 segments including personal finance, economy, welfare measures and railways, which clearly gave the message that passengers want focus on safety and cleanliness. About 64% of the total respondents want improved safety and cleaner toilets as well as trains. Enhanced connectivity came second in the poll while faster trains and more trains were at 3rd and 4th position, respectively.
