Railway Budget 2011: Expect populist rail budget, no freight hike, says Emkay

MUMBAI: Union Railways Minister, Mamata Banerjee, will present her railways budget in the Parliament today. According to analysts, the minister is likely to keep in mind the assembly election in the West Bengal in next two months may announce a populist budget.

“Freight rates not likely to be hiked as Railways has sought a hike in Dec 10 of approximately 4%. No hike expected on the freight side – Little impact on Concor or GDL major.

Railways budgeted procurement of 18,000 wagons in FY11E, we expect similar levels of procurement for FY12E. Companies to watch out – Texmaco and Titagarh Wagons. We expect the increase in plan outlay will benefit companies like - L&T, Kernex Microsystems, BEML, Kalindee Rail, ARSS Infra amd Hindustan Rectifier,” said, Jitesh Bhanot, research analyst, Emkay Global Financial Services.

The Railways have generated Rs 761.9 billion of revenue earnings from commodity-wise freight traffic during April 2010-January 2011 as compared to Rs. 945.7 billion of overall expected Revenues for FY11E and has achieved ~81% of the annual target.