Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu played safe in his maiden Budget refusing to take the populist route of announcing a large number of new trains but also failed to take measures to increase the earnings of the public transporter by not increasing the passenger fare.

With no major announcements, the Railway Minister on Thursday unveiled his first Budget majorly revolving around the Narendra Modi government's pet slogans of Clean India and Digital India.

He spared passengers from any hike in fares but made changes in freight rates to rake in more money while ruling out privatisation. "I have not increased passenger fares. We are directing our efforts to make travel on Indian railways a happy experience with a mix of various initiatives," he said as he laid out 11 major thrust areas of railways in the coming financial year.

He did not announce any new trains on the ground that a review was on about the capacity to add more trains. The Budget said that new trains are likely to be announced after the review is over.

Presenting the first full-fledged Rail Budget of the Modi government for 2015-16, he made adjustments in freight rates that exempted salt but would hike rates on carriage of cement, coal and coke, iron or steel and petroleum products. The Budget also revised the commodity classification and distance slabs for carriage of commodities that can raise freight rates upto 10 per cent in some of the items.