CAG report being used selectively, Railways to reply to parliament soon: Govt sources

New Delhi [India], June 5 (ANI): In response to the CAG report being cited by certain quarters related to the expense on safety by the Indian Railways, government sources have said that this information is being selectively used.

Top sources have said that Expenditure on all projects of Indian Railways, including Safety-related works, is funded from three major sources. “Gross Budgetary Support, Internal generation of Indian Railways and External borrowing are the three heads for funding,” the sources said.
“Government set up a dedicated non-lapsable Fund, Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) in 2017, with a corpus of Rs.1 lakh crore to be utilised over a period of five years starting 2017-18, for critical safety related works,” government sources further said.

As per the official data with the Ministry of Railways, in the period from 2017-18 to 2021-22, Railways spent more than Rs 1 lakh cr on RRSK works. In February 2022, Government of India extended the validity of RRSK by another five years, starting 2022-23.

On the issue of track renewal as part of the safety component, the official figures of the ministry show an increase in the funds allocated during the period of 2017-18 to 2021-22. From Rs 8884 cr, in 2017-18, the expenditure on Track renewal increased to Rs 13,522 cr in 2020-21 and Rs 16558 cr in 2021-22. The total spending on Track Renewal was Rs 58,045 cr during this period.

The expenditure on track renewal on Indian Railways has increased from Rs 47039 Cr during 2004-05 to 2013-14 to Rs 109023 Cr during 2014-15 to 2023-24 which is nearly double the figure, as per the official records.

The report number 22 of 2022, of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Indian on “Derailment in Indian Railways” was laid on the floor of the house on 21.12.2022. As a matter of practice, the railway ministry will soon be replying in detail to the findings of the report, the sources said.

“The coverage of RRSK utilization, in the Report, is limited to three years – 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. Hence, it gives a partial picture on actual expenditure that has been undertaken on both track renewal as well as safety related works by Indian Railways,” the govt sources said.

As per the data available, from 2005- 2014 the spend on railway safety has been Rs 1.64 lakh crores which has increased 5 times. Between 2014-2023-24 the figure stands at 8.26 lakh crore.