Key Highlights, Schemes, Details Analysis for UPSC & Govt. Exams

Railways Budget 2023 Live Updates by FM Nirmala Sitharaman Speech: The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2023 in Parliament on February 01, 2023. This is the fifth budget presented by the Finance Minister since she took over the Ministry of Finance of the country. Union Budget 2023 is the last full-fledged budget before the Lok Sabha polls next year.

Railways Budget 2023 Live Updates What’s New: Funds, Schemes, Interventions

• Shares of railway-related companies, including Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd and IRCON International, witnessed an up-trend on February 1, 2023, ahead of the Union Budget presentation in Parliament.
• Experts believe that shares of railway-related companies are in the focus as Dalal Street expects a boost to railways’ capital expenditure. 
• Expectations of higher allocations are driving the stocks.
• Railway outlay highest ever, 9x over FY14.

Railways Budget Highlights: Important Facts & Figures of Indian Railways Budget 2022-23

• Revenue: Railways’ internal revenue for 2022-23 is estimated at Rs 2,40,000 crore, an increase of 19% over the revised estimates for 2021-22.  In 2021-22, revenue is estimated to be 7% lower than the budget estimate.
• Traffic revenue:  Total revenue from traffic for 2022-23 is estimated to be Rs 2,39,600 crore, an increase of 19% over revised estimates for 2021-22.  Freight revenue is estimated to be Rs 1,65,000 crore in 2022-23, an increase of 14% over the revised estimates for 2021-22.  The passenger revenue is estimated to be Rs 58,500 crore, an increase of 32% over a low base in 2021-22 (due to COVID-19).  In 2021-22, passenger revenue is estimated to be 27% lower than the budget estimate, whereas freight revenue is estimated to be 5% higher than the budget estimate.
• Expenditure:  The total revenue expenditure by Railways for 2022-23 is projected to be Rs 2,34,640 crore, an increase of 17% over revised estimates for 2021-22.  In 2021-22, revenue expenditure is estimated to be 5% lower than the budget estimate.  In 2022-23, capital expenditure is projected at Rs 2,45,800 crore, an increase of 14% over the revised estimates for 2021-22.  The revised estimates for capital expenditure in 2021-22 are marginally higher than the budget estimate.
• Operating Ratio: The operating Ratio is a ratio of working expenses to the receipts from traffic.  A lower ratio implies better profitability and availability of resources for capital spending.  In 2022-23, the Railways’ Operating Ratio is estimated to be 96.98%.  This would be an improvement over the operating ratio of 98.93% in 2021-22 (revised estimates).  An operating ratio of 96.15% was estimated at the budget stage in 2021-22. 

Key Announcements and Proposals related to Railways made in Budget 2022-23 include: 

• Railways will develop new products and efficient logistics services for small farmers, and small and medium enterprises.  It will also take steps towards the integration of postal and railway networks to provide seamless solutions for the movement of parcels.
• 100 PM-GatiShakti Cargo Terminals for multimodal logistics facilities will be developed over the next three years.  
• Multimodal connectivity between mass urban transport and railway stations will be facilitated on priority.
• 400 new-generation Vande Bharat trains will be manufactured over the next three years.
• 2,000 km of the network will be brought under Kavach, the indigenous technology for safety and capacity augmentation.
• The ‘One Station-One Product’ concept will be popularised to help local businesses and supply chains.