Indian government on Wednesday presented a "people friendly" railway budget in parliament as it stressed safety should be the top priority for the train network which has "to be benchmarked with Europe and Japan".

"Indian Railways has to be benchmarked with Europe and Japan. My focus will be safety, safety, safety," Indian Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi said as he unveiled the rail budget which he claimed was aimed at the "common man".

The minister said he was not satisfied with the current safety standards and claimed a special purpose vehicle would be set up to achieve better safety protocols. He added unmanned level crossings would be abolished in the next five years.

Trivedi said the target of reducing accidents from 0.55 to 0.17 had been met. "I vow to target zero deaths," he said in his rail budget speech.

The minister said that there would not be any steep increase in passenger fares, only a minimal hike. He announced 75 new express trains and 21 new passenger trains, adding that the railways were expected to recruit over one lakh people in the next financial year.

In addition, the minister spelt out several modernization programs for the railways in his speech and said investment of 560 billion rupees (12 billion U.S. dollars) would be required for the purpose.

According to Trivedi, focus would be on modernization of railways and the Prime Minister's advisor Sam Pitroda would head the railway modernization committee. He said investment of 560 billion rupees would be required for the purpose.

The Indian Railways run the third largest rail network in the world which spreads over 64,000 km, with 12,000 passenger and 7, 000 freight trains running each day from as many as 7,083 stations to ferry 23 million travelers and 2.65 million tons of goods daily.