Cash Surplus Earned by Railways
	17:0 IST

Lok Sabha Railways have budgeted for a ‘cash surplus of Rs.16082 crore after dividend’ in the current year. This cash surplus is utilized to finance the Railways’ Plan for augmentation of track & rolling stock and replacement & renewal of the Railway infrastructure. At present, around Rs.218 crore have been sanctioned for various works costing above Rs.50 lakh to bring about improvement in sanitary conditions of service buildings (including station buildings), Railway colonies and improving the condition of coaches including provision of green toilets. In the current year’s Plan, an amount of Rs.23 crore (i.e., 0.14% of the above cash surplus) has been provided for undertaking these works. Works valuing less than Rs.50 lakh are undertaken by zonal railways under their powers. Apart from above, about Rs.800 cr is to be spent on the sanitation of service buildings (including stations), residential colonies & welfare buildings and the coaches from out of the working expenses of the Railways which are incurred before arriving at the above surplus. A special campaign has been launched to mark the year 2007 as ‘cleanliness year’. Frontline staff are being imparted ‘on the job customer care training’ besides the class room training for a period of one year or so. A number of stations have been selected on Indian Railways for developing them as Clean Train Stations. Railways are also making special efforts to improve the standards of cleanliness and hygiene in trains with special emphasis on rake cleaning in the depots during maintenance by going in for mechanized cleaning arrangements, enroute cleaning at Clean Train Stations wherever commissioned, cleaning during terminal attention at the other ends, comprehensive cockroach and rodent control in trains etc. This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri R.Velu in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today. AKS/HK/CK/TR