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Indian Railway Budget Speech 2016-17
Speech of Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu introducing the Railway
Budget for 2016-17 on 25th of February, 2016
Madam Speaker,
1. I rise to present before this August House the Statement of
Estimated Receipts and Expenditure for 2016-17 for Indian
Railways.
2. Let me begin with a couple of personal experiences. As the
Railway Minister of India, I visit a number of places and meet a
large number of people from all walks of life. On one visit to
Mumbai Central station, I was pleasantly surprised to find a
group of women engaged in cleaning. The station looked very
clean. On seeing me, a lady came and thanked me for allowing her
NGO to adopt the station. For the last five months she had been
volunteering a day every month at the station. She said that she
felt very happy to be contributing her little bit to this national
cause.
3. In another incident, Alok Tiwari, an inspector in the Railway
Protection Force, recently deputed to the social media cell of the
Railway Board, shared his sentiments. He is responsible for taking
action on passengers’ requests for help on social media. He said
that for the first time in his professional career, he has realised
how his little actions were making a huge difference in
passengers’ lives. He felt enthused and proud to be part of Indian
Railways.
4. Madam Speaker, it is people like these who are the soul of India
and Indian Railways, and that is why this is not my Budget alone.
This is a Budget which reflects the aspirations of each and every
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member of the Railway family; a Budget that reflects the
aspirations of the common citizens of India who have not only
been writing to me, interacting with me on social media but also
meeting me in large numbers to share their thoughts. This is a
Budget that has been fashioned by a creative partnership: with
ideas from my colleagues in Parliament, industry associations,
commuter associations, media and practically all sections of the
society. I would like to thank each one of you. But above all, this
Budget owes its inspiration to the vision and leadership of our
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji. He had once said, “My
vision is to make railways the backbone of India's progress and
economic development.” We are making all out efforts to translate
his vision into reality. Our core objective is to improve the quality
of customer experience at the individual level, become an engine
of employment generation and economic growth at the national
level and convert India’s largest institution into a template for
transformation.
“या ी क' गमा, रेल क' ग-रा
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