Climbing down from its austerity drive, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday pegged working expenses of the Railways higher at Rs 39447.14 crore (Rs 394.47 billion) for 2003-04 as against revised estimates of Rs 36666.37 crore (Rs 366.66 billion) a year ago.

The increase in the working expenses of Railways is on staff and welfare amenities and operating expenses like fuel, traffic and other miscellaneous expenses, according to the Rail budget for this fiscal tabled in the Parliament.

While estimates for staff welfare and amenities have been increased to Rs 1354.16 crore (Rs 13.54 billion) for this fiscal from earlier revised estimates of Rs 1269.23 crore (Rs 12.69 billion), provident fund, pension and other retirement benefits costs have also gone upto Rs 6551.33 crore (Rs 65.51 billion) from Rs 5878.86 crore (Rs 58.78 billion) in 2002-03.

The rise of 672.69 crore (Rs 6.72 billion) in the estimates for PF, pension, and other retirement benefits is being anticipated due to increase in number of pensioners, higher dearness relief on pension, and leave salary which until previous year was being charged to other demands.

PTI