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BUDGET 2008:

o Railway Budget 2008

o Union Budget 2008

Sixth Central Pay Commission Report: ‘The comprehensive and good salary packages’

Railway Budget

26^th February 2008 Shree Laalu Prasaad Yadav was beeming with deep pride and satisfaction as he was about to present the Railway Budget for the year 2008-09. The Railway Minister’s confidence and body language spoke volumes of the movement of the Indian Railways up the success ladder. The cash surplus of the Railways rose steadily from Rs 9000 cr in 2005 to Rs 20000 cr in 2007. For 2007-08 the cash surplus before Dividend of Rs. 25000 cr is better than most fortune 500 companies. With promises like termination of passenger queues at the ticket booking counters, online coach indication display and many more such amenities for passengers both on board and improvement of facilities on the platforms as well as rising the service level bars, the minister attributed success to out of the box thinking and to continue the spree in future. To quote:

“Sab kah rahe hain humne gazab kaam kiya hai,

Karoron ka munafa har ek shaam diya hai,

Phal salon yeh ab dega, paudha jo lagaya hai,

Sewa ka, samarpan ka, har farz nibhaya hai.”

-Shri Laalu Prasaad Yadav, Union Railway Minister

Industry impact and Market reaction: The industry sees positive impact from the budget. Measures such as freight rate cuts on petrol & diesel by 5% and fly ash by 14% would have an overall positive impact on the economy. The industry sources said that the decision for increased investments on container traffic by running more trains is a welcome step. It will bring down cost to end users and help in the long run to improve railway services:

Food grains, Fertilizer, Cement companies will gain from the decision of building Bulk handling terminals.
Information Technology sector, this time, too got a pie in the rail budget with plans to improve customer services. For this, attention is being focused on I.T. applications in three core areas namely freight service management, passenger service management and general management through use of technologies like GIS, GPS and RFID will be applied progressively.
Logistic industry also tends to gain as the railway focus on increasing container traffic to 100 million tonnes by 2011-12.
Railway Minister has also taken decision of providing LHB coaches with stainless steel ICF bogies to Mail and Express trains besides Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains. This would boost demand for the steel in coming years.
Fares: The passenger fares being slashed further to a tune of 2-7%.

To read more about the Railway Budget 2008 please refer to one of the following links:

UNION BUDGET 2008

29 February 2008 after the beeming Railway Minister, now it was the turn of the Union Finance Minister to have his share of attention and limelight. The Union Budget 2008-09 presented by Mr. P Chidambaram intends to bring about some paradigm changes. Here’s a quick overview:

Farmers have been granted a package of Rs 60,000-cr
300 more ITIs to be elevated with an investment of Rs 750 cr
Setting up of 3 new IITs, 16 central universities
Power sector would be given national fund for transmission, distribution reforms.
Tea would get Rs 400 mn special support fund.
Micro irrigation scheme allocated Rs 500 cr
Agriculture share in total investment would be raised to 16% from 10.2%
Grant for ministry of minorities would be raised to Rs 1,000 cr
Planned schemes for woman to get Rs 11,460 cr this fiscal
Child related schemes would be granted Rs 33,434 cr
288 branches of public sector banks would be set up in 2008

To read more about the Union Budget 2008 please refer to one of the following links:

Railway Budget

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