{"id":34401,"date":"2018-10-30T17:23:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T11:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=34401"},"modified":"2018-10-30T17:23:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T11:53:33","slug":"govt-may-have-to-foot-bill-for-rail-safety-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/govt-may-have-to-foot-bill-for-rail-safety-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt. may have to foot bill for rail safety fund:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-business\/govt-may-have-to-foot-bill-for-rail-safety-fund\/article19902930.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Govt. may have to foot bill for rail safety fund<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ministry of Railways knocks Finance Ministry\u2019s door to contribute its share towards the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Rosh (RRSK) as the public utility is staring at an earnings shortfall <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the concern?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Indian railways have utilized a quarter of the safety fund<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has spent Rs 5,031 crore from the RRSK in the first six months of the current year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Railways sundry earnings had declined sharply by 35.7% during this period. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Income from non-fare revenues, including land lease, advertising, PSU dividends and catering department, form part of the sundry earnings.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the need of safety funds in railways?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Railway accidents not only lead to immense loss of lives and property, but also impact the psyche of general public for whom railways is a primary mode of transport. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rail accident does not merely involve damage to rail infrastructure alone. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a huge cost to society as well, society pays dearly through lost lives, lost livelihood, loss of productivity, disability, medical expenses, disruption of traffic, loss of the wagons etc.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The highest cost is the loss of passenger confidence which may translate into loss of revenue in future for the railways. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The world\u2019s fourth-largest rail network ferries millions of passengers every day, but doesn\u2019t have a good safety record. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the last three years, at least 650 people have died in train accidents.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is RRSK?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Rosh (RRSK) is a dedicated fund for critical safety-related works.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the budget 2017 \u2013 18, ministry had announced the setting up a special safety fund with an amount of more than Rs. 1 lakh crore over a period of five years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indian Railways will hire close to 200,000 workers over the next few years in a recruitment drive aimed at strengthening its safety and ground patrolling divisions. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the purpose of creating RRSK?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fundamental purpose of creating RRSK is to ensure funds for implementing Safety works on Railways.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A decongested network is prone to accidents due to limited margin for error and hence decongesting such network enhances railway safety. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Increase in fares<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Railways have decided to increase passenger fares for raising its resources in order to create a special fund.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A safety cess will be levied to generate funds for strengthening track and upgrading signalling system and elimination of unmanned level crossings among other safety-related works to prevent mishaps.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the plan, the cess on Sleeper, Second Class and AC-3 will be higher while it will be marginal for AC-2 and AC-1. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With earnings deficit, the Ministry of Railways may find it difficult to contribute its share towards the newly- constituted Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Rosh (RRSK) \u2013 a dedicated fund for critical safety-related works.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Govt. may have to foot bill for rail safety fund:\u00a0 Context The Ministry of Railways knocks Finance Ministry\u2019s door to contribute its share towards the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Rosh (RRSK) as the public utility is staring at an earnings shortfall What is the concern? The Indian railways have utilized a quarter of the safety fund&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/govt-may-have-to-foot-bill-for-rail-safety-fund\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Govt. may have to foot bill for rail safety fund:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704711280},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}