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Articles: No increase in fares, freight rates

Posted by admin on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 12:39 AM

Railway minister Lalu Prasad today presented the Railway Budget for 2004-05 in the Lok Sabha amidst boycott by the BJP-led opposition.
The Railway Budget for 2004-05 proposes no increase in any passenger fares for any class of travel or hike in freight rates. The minister proposed to complete 273 kms of new lines including the Chandigarh-Morinda-Ludhiana, Kakinada-Kotipalli and Hassan-Bangalore tracks. Presenting the Budget in the Lok Sabha, the railway minister today said that apart from nine new lines, the railways would complete 17 guage conversion projects involving 1,000 kms during the current fiscal. The guage conversion projects included Mansi-Saharsa, Ankura-Sonamukhi, Madurai-Manamadurai, Ranchi-Lohargada and Udaipur-Chittaugarh. The railways also propose to complete doubling of 381 kms of lines in the current year as against 206 kms finished in 2003-04. The doubling of lines includes completion of Jalandhar-Jammu Tawi line. In the parcel segment, in which additional revenue of Rs 50 crore is sought to be raised during the remaining part of the current year, it is proposed to increase the rates of booking of parcels by Rajdhani Express Trains, under scale-r, by around 7.1%.

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