Rail budget, which is widely expected to have passenger fares untouched but freight tariff may by rationalised in a bid to shore up drying revenues, will be presented by Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday.

Particularly when it is scheduled for assembly polls next year, the fiery minister is not one to leave an opportunity to appease the people of her home state and a bonanza in the form of new routes and higher frequency of existing trains particularly await the people of West Bengal.

Indian Railways is the world's second largest under a single management with a network of 108,706 km to ferry some 14 million passengers on 7,000 trains daily from 6,906 stations apart from running 4,000 freight trains to carry 850 million tonnes of cargo.

Yet, the ministry is well aware that the share of Indian Railways in the movement of goods, vis a vis truckers, has fallen from 24.07 percent in 2001-02 to 20.89 percent in 2008-09.

According to the Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training This share has further dropped to 19.32 percent, as compared with 80.68 percent for trucks in the first 10 months of this fiscal.

Clearly, grabbing a higher share of freight, that accounts for the bulk of the earnings for Indian Railways, will be prime on the minister's agenda.

This focus, according to the ministry's paper, will be on the Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Mumbai, Kolkata-Mumbai and Delhi-Chennai routes, on which dedicated freight corridors would be created.

Benchmarking the quality of service to the best in the world, zero accidents, utilising at least 10 percent of energy requirements from renewable sources and a foolproof eco-friendly waste management system will be among other main goals. (With Input from Agencies)