Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee  did not increase passenger fares or freight rates in the Railway Budget for 2009-10 that she announced in Parliament on Friday.

*Here are some highlights of her Railway Budget speech:
*No hike in passenger fares.
*No hike in freight rates.
*Book stores, PCOs to be set up across stations.
*Infotainment services on Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.
*To take the private-public partnership route to develop stations.
*Priority for food and water on trains.
*Developing multi-functional complexes at stations.
*Priority to passenger amenities.
*Rail projects shouldn’t be gauged by economic viability but governed by social viability.
*To set up panel for financing unvaiilable rail projects.
*SMS updates on wait-listed tickets to be introduced.
*Auto-vending machines to be installed in large and medium stations.
*High-capacity air-conditioned double-decker trains to be introduced on select inter-city routes.
*Unreserved ticketing terminals to be expanded from 5,000 to 8,000. Automatic ticket vending machines to be increased. Arrangement with Department of Posts for issuance of tickets.
*An Integrated Security System is being developed for 130 vulnerable stations to provide security to passengers.
*Seven nursing colleges to be set up on railway land in places including Delhi , Kolkata [] and Mumbai .
*Railway medical colleges to be developed along with rail hospitals on public-private partnership.
*Better representation to be given to minorities, women and the economically backward in railway recruitment. Special recruitment drive to be launched to fill vacancies in physically-handicapped category.
*18,000 wagons to be acquired during the current year.
*Railways making efforts with Department of Heavy Industries for takeover of ailing wagon manufacturing units like Burn Standards.
*New policy to be launched for construction and operation of private freight terminals.
*Railways to develop cold storages for farmers to store vegetables and fruits.
*Superfast parcel express trains to be started on a pilot basis between Delhi and Chennai and Delhi and Mumbai.
*Railways to set up Land Banks to be used for industry.
*A new coach factory with state-of-the-art facilities, exclusively for manufacturing 500 coaches per annum to be set up at Kanchrapara in West Bengal [ Images ]. Work on coach factory in Rae Bareli to be speeded up.
*Railways to set up a 1,000 MW power plant.
*Freight loading target for 2009-10 set at 882 million tonnes, an increase of 39 million tonnes.
*New scheme ‘Izzat’ (respect) to be introduced under which monthly season ticket of Rs 25 for up to 100 kilometers could be availed by unorganised sector passengers.
*Photo-ID cards-cum-credit cards to be given to accredited journalists. Travel concession has been increased from 30 to 50 per cent for them.
*Ladies’ specials to be introduced in suburban trains during peak hours.
*Twelve non-stop point-to-point trains between select cities to be introduced. The sections include — Howrah-Mumbai, Delhi-Lucknow, Delhi-Chennai, Delhi-Pune, Delhi-Allahabad, Howrah-Delhi, Sealdah-Delhi and Ernakulum-Delhi.
*Tatkal booking time reduced from 5 to 2 days.
*Banerjee says an expert committee will be set up to advise her on implementation of the so-called economically unviable but socially desired projects.
*”My priorities will include better passenger amenities, safety and security and provision of good quality food and drinking water,” says Banerjee.
*Railway ministry has plans to develop important stations through private-public partnership. These include CST Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Howrah, Sealdah, Varanasi, New Delhi, Lucknow [ Images ], Jaipur [ Images ], Kanpur, Chennai Central, Thiruvananthapuram Central, Secunderabad, Bangalore City, Byappanahalli, Ahmedabad [ Images ], Bhopal, Habibganj, Agra [ Images ] Central, Chandigarh, Kolkata, New Jalpaiguri, Puri and Kochi.
*Railways to develop multi-functional complexes with shopping malls, food stalls, medicines and variety stores in different parts of the country.
*Infotainment services to be provided in major long-distance trains, Banerjee says.
*Banerjee says an expert committee will be set up to advise her on implementation of the so-called economically unviable but socially desired projects.
*Develop 50 stations as world class stations.
*Improvement of trains amenities.
*Tatkal charges reduced from Rs. 150 to Rs. 100.
*Committed to the cause of the underpreviliged.
*India wants better rail connectivity.
*Yuva  air-conditioned (AC) trains to be introduced for the youth whereby one would have to pay Rs 299 for distances upto 1,500 km and Rs 399 for distances upto 2,500 km.