With a view to
wiping out the arrears of replacements and renewals of overaged
assets on the railways, the Government has set up a non-lapsable
Special Railway Safety Fund of Rs.17,000 crores with effect
from October 1, 2002. In 2001-02, the net expenditure under
SRSF was Rs.1434 crores as against Rs.1400 crores initially
budgeted. In 2002-03, as against a budget estimate of Rs.2210
crores, the net expenditure as per revised estimates would be
Rs.2310 cr. The net expenditure on safety related Planheads
from sources other than SRSF has been Rs.1328.36 crores in 2001-02
and is expected to be Rs.1803.92 crores in the 2002-03 RE. Take
this into account, the total safety related expenditure has
been Rs.2762.64 crores in 2001-02 and in 2002-03 would be Rs.4113.92
crores as per the RE.
The General Managers
of Zonal Railways have been delegated with more powers for incurring
expenditure on Safety related works under planheads Bridge Works,
Signalling and Telecommunication and Track Renewals. The General
managers can now sanction upto Rs.50 lakh per item as compared
to Rs.30 lakh per item earlier under the specified Plan heads.
The annual financial ceiling has also been increased from Rs.6
crores to Rs.10 crores per annum. The General managers are to
exercise these powers within the overall Budget allotment.
This information
was given by the Minister of Railways, Shri Nitish Kumar in
reply to a question from Smt. Banga Geetha in the Rajya Sabha
today.
