Rlys unveils business plan for new fiscal

NEW DELHI: Railways minister Suresh Prabhu did not present the Rail Budget this year but his speech at an official function on Thursday was nothing short of a budget presentation.

He launched a business plan for 2017-18, announced the rollout of Roll-on-roll-off service — a policy on long term contracts for freight customers — and unveiled plans on scaling up the travel experience for passengers. Only his speech was outside Parliament.

“Nobody asked us to do this (make a budget presentation of sorts). But we decided to set goals for ourselves and take accountability for the tasks to be undertaken this year,” said Prabhu.

The government discontinued the 92-year-old practice of presenting a separate Rail Budget this year by merging it with the general budget. Finance minister Arun Jaitley devoted three pages to the Railways in the budget and that couldn’t have reflected the ministry’s plans and vision for

Prabhu made up for that o Thursday. His ministry’s func tion had all the trappings of a Ra Budget presentation. All top off cials were present when Prabh made the 45-minute-long speec about his plans, including initia tives to ramp up non-fare reve nues and steps to provide for “comfortable and pleasurabl journey”. The two ministers o state for railways — Manoj Sinh and Rajen Gohain — were sched uled to be there, but opted ou because of preoccupations.

The minister’s speech wa interspersed with his recorde bytes from his earlier budge speeches in the large televisio screens put up in the national ra museum auditorium. There wa no thumping of desks as in Parlia ment, but this was more tha compensated by loud claps fro the audience . “Other ministrie and departments may not hav the practice of releasing busines plans or annual statements, bu the Railways are an operationa ministry. The annual plan wi help rail employees align with th overall plan of the government, railway board member (traffic