Focusing on rail funds from monetisation and not budget: Goyal

Mumbai, Jan 13 (PTI) Aiming to fund rail expenditurethrough asset monetisation, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal saidtoday he would be "satisfied" with any amount of capitalallocation to the transport behemoth in the upcoming budget.Without giving details on the budget allocation forRailways, Goyal told reporters here that he is "satisfied withwhatever has been proposed (in the budget)"."Frankly, I may may not even need all of that as wehave aggressive plans on monetising some of the (Railways)assets," he said.The Railway budget was merged with the general budgetlast year.The minister said his government is planning to changesome of the existing guidelines on monetising land and stationassets as well as contemplating on extending the lease periodfrom 45 years to 99 years, among others.Speaking on the sidelines of an BSE event, he alsonoted that after extensive stakeholder deliberations "there isa lot of excitement among them to get involved"."One concern developers had was regarding the approvalprocess, so we are bringing in new guidelines to penaliseourselves (the Railways) for every day of delay in givingapprovals," Goyal said.He said the move will help build confidence among thepromoters and maximise the value of the Railways and thereforenot make the PSU "dependent on the Union budget".Asked about plans to list the Indian Railways FinanceCorporation (IRFC), Goyal said the public sector enterprise islooking to expand its footprint in days to come into newerline of business which would help improve its valuation."Therefore, some of those timelines I have allowed tobe delayed till the final business plans are made andfinalised with Ministry of Finance and Ministry of CorporateAffairs...certain other concessions we require," Goyal said.IRFC is a unit of the Indian Railways that helps raise financing for various other units of the transport PSU. PTI

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