Railways spent ₹1.08 trillion towards safety from 2017-18 to 2021-22: Vaishnaw
₹1.08 trillion on Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) or rail safety-related works during 2017-18 to 2021-22. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, “RRSK was created in 2017-18 for execution of assessed safety works with a corpus of ₹1 trillion over a period of five years. The projects taken up under this fund relate to track renewal, bridges, signalling, rolling stock, training and amenities for safety critical staff.
RRSK works are to be funded from Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) and Railways revenues or resources including mobilisation of resources through Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR), as per Ministry of Finance guidelines on RRSK." The minister also said that the Railway Safety Fund (RSF) was created in 2001-02 initially to fund works relating to level crossing and road over bridge and road under bridges. However, its scope has subsequently been expanded for capital expenditure on other safety works also. During the last five years, the RRSK and the RSF have been operated for expenditure on safety related works.
“Apart from this capital expenditure from Gross Budgetary Support, DRF and DF is made on safety related works. Between FY 2014-15 and FY 2022-23 the total expenditure and BE for FY 2023-24 amounts to ₹1.78 lakh crore on safety related plan heads. This amount is about 2.5 times the amount spent on safety related plan heads during FY 2004-05 to FY 2013-14 ( ₹70,274 crore)," he said.
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