accelerating the pace of modernisation of the national transporter and ensuring safe rail travel seems to have been on finance minister arun jaitleys mind when he was presenting the first union budget after doing away with the 92yearold colonial practice of having a separate annual railway budget after a 17year wait railways finally got the green signal to set up a railway safety fund of rs one lakh crore over a period of five years the nda government under atal bihari vajpayee had raised rs 17000 crore as a special safety fund in 2001 when nitish kumar was the railway minister the recent spate of train accidents have highlighted the vulnerability of the national carrier which is running its operations using very old assets and outdated technology the budget proposes to eliminate all unmanned level crossings on the broad gauge network by 2020 with the government keen on giving a massive push to infrastructure the fm announced the highest ever allocation of rs 131 lakh crore for capex and development expenditure in 201718 against rs 121 lakh crore last year the budget sets an ambitious target of commissioning 3500km of new railway lines against 2800km in 201617 it also gives a push to long pending accounting reforms as jaitley announced that accrualbased financial statements would be rolled out by march 2019 indian railways has kept its operating ratio at 9457 for 201718 compared to 949 in revised estimates and 92 in budgetary estimates for 201617 the operating ratio shows how much of revenue goes into meeting expense the lower the ratio the better it is for the railways the transporter failed to meet the ambitious target of 92 due to a huge liability arising from the implementation of the seventh pay commission and negligible growth in the freight loading business sources said the fm wanted to raise passenger fares for all classes other than the general category but the plan was shelved considering the assembly elections in five states the tariffs of the railways would be fixed taking into consideration costs quality of service social obligations and competition from other forms of transport jaitley said in his speech hinting at a possible revision of fares after the elections making rail travel more comfortable and maintaining cleanliness were the other focus areas as the railways plans to spend rs 2100 crore on enhancing passenger amenities redevelopment of at least 25 stations into worldclass structures during 201718 making 500 stations friendlier for the differently abled through lifts and escalators a new coach mitra facility and a singlewindow interface to register all coachrelated complaints and requirements were the key promises made by the fm he said all rail coaches would be fitted with clean bio toilets which contain anaerobic bacteria that break down excreta into methane and other gases that escape into the air as well as the water that falls on the tracks without affecting the cleanliness of the area by 2019 the fm also announced withdrawal of service