New Delhi, Feb 26: Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday announced concessions for students that include free monthly season tickets for girl students up to graduation and for boy students up to 12th standard.

At present, free monthly season tickets for second class travel between school and home are provided to girl students up to 12th standard and boy students up to 10th standard.

Along with this, he has announced several new concessions for rail travel. These include concession for senior lady citizens, concession for Ashok Chakra Awardees and for AIDS affected persons.

New Delhi, Feb 26 : Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Tuesday announced the introduction of 10 new Garib Rath trains to provide better comfort at lower fare and also proposed introduction of 53 new trains and extension of 16 trains.

Besides this, frequency of 11 trains will be increased, Lalu Prasad said while presenting the Rail Budget for next fiscal.

In view of tercentenary function of Shri Guru Granth Sahib Gurta Gaddi at Nanded, the Railway Minister proposed special trains from Anandpur Sahib and Patna Sahib to Nanded during the celebrations.

New Delhi, Feb 26 : Presenting the Railway Budget for 2008-09 in the Lok Sabha today, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav announced the availability of rail ticket, monthly season tickets and platform tickets on smart card for the Mumbai Suburban Service.

This service would be launched by the end of next month. The Central Railways has already started a trial run for this purpose through public-private partnership.

New Delhi, Feb 26: Railways Minister Lalu Prasad on Tuesday said that an investment of 75,000 crore rupees will be made over the next seven years to augment line capacity on identified routes to create the required capacity for carrying an additional 310 million tonnes.

While presenting the Railway Budget 2008-09 in the Lok Sabha, Lalu said that a blue print on the route-wise detailed study has been prepared and accordingly, route-wise works would be undertaken in a phased manner.

New Delhi, February 26: Announcing a slew of new passenger utilities Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, in his fifth budget, has announced the facility of ticket reservations from anywhere through mobile phones.

He said that his ministry is at an advanced stage of negotiations with several mobile service providers, and this could be one of big-ticket ideas in the Rail Budget.

The idea is to deliver the ticket on the cell phone itself in the form of an SMS and a passenger would merely need to show this SMS to board and travel on the train, according to sources.

New Delhi, Feb 26: U