Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday outlined a three-pronged approach to help Railways regain its market share in freight haulage. From a high of close to 80 percent in 1951, Railways' share of freight has fallen below 20 percent. A combination of congested rail networks and a steady rise in freight rates to offset the losses in passenger revenues is to blame for this trend. 
The market has opened flat on a very crucial day of February Future & options expiry and Rail Budget. The Sensex is up 2.37 points at 23091.30 and the Nifty is up 11.15 points or 0.2 percent at 7029.85. About 247 shares have advanced, 106 shares declined, and 20 shares are unchanged. Hindalco, ONGC, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank and BHEL are top gainers while NTPC, ITC, Hero MotoCorp, Dr Reddy's Labs and HDFC are losers in the Sensex.
The market has opened sharply lower on Wednesday, tracking weak global cues. The Sensex fell 129.34 points or 0.55 percent to 23280.84 and the Nifty declined 34.85 points or 0.49 percent to 7074.70. ICICI Bank, ONGC, NTPC, BHEL, Dr Reddy's Labs, PNB, Cairn India and Vedanta were down 1-4 percent while HUL, Maruti Suzuki, BPCL, Grasim, Zee Entertainment and Power Grid Corp were early gainers. 
Broking firm Edelweiss says there is a strong case for the government to step up public spending in the Budget as demand is weak, inflation and current account deficit risks are low. "The government may be on a weak footing on tax revenue, but is rich in asset base," said the Edelweiss pre-Budget note. "Priority should be accorded to social and physical infrastructure, agriculture and PSU banks’ recapitalization," the note says.
The Railway Budget is expected to focus on massive capacity creation in the rail sector with an increased outlay of about Rs 1.25 lakh crore. A significant amount will be earmarked for safety upgradation, electrification, doubling and modernisation of yards to clear traffic bottlenecks, sources in the railways said. However, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will have to depend mostly on the External Budgetary Resources (EBR) for execution of the capacity augmentation projects and he will give details of his resource mobilisation plan in the Rail Budget 2016-17.
The S&P BSE Sensex edged lower by 100 points in Tuesday morning trade tracking mixed cues from other Asian markets. The losses on the index were led by ITC, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Auto and Bharti Airtel.The 50-share NSE barometer, Nifty50, edged lower in trade to slip below its crucial support level of 7,200. The losses in energy, pharma, banking counters weighed on the index.