As first time the Railway Budget is merged with General Budget. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley termed it as “ridding us of the colonial era practice of separate budgets”.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made a slew of announcements for Indian Railways – from doing away with service charge for IRCTC ticket booking to proposal to list IRCTC, IRCON and IRFC.
FM Jaitley said that the total capital and development outlay for Indian Railways will be Rs 1.31 lakh crore, out of which the government will provide Rs 55,000 crore.
The merger of the Union Budget and Railway Budget was proposed by the Railway Minister and endorsed by the NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India- Government of India’s policy think-tank established to replace the Planning Commission).
The history of having separate Budget dates back to the British era.
Here are the highlights of what Budget 2017 has for railways.