Interim budget: Three new railway corridors to reduce congestion
The capital allocation in the interim budget announced by Sitharaman for the ministry of railways was ₹2.52 lakh crore
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced the government will set up three major economic railway corridors to reduce congestion and logistics costs in India.
Presenting the Union interim budget for the 2024-25 financial year, the minister said these corridors will be for energy, mineral and cement, another to enhance port connectivity, and a third to decongest the high traffic density corridors.
“The resultant decongestion of the high-traffic corridors will also help in improving operations of passenger trains, resulting in safety and higher travel speed for passengers. Together with dedicated freight corridors, these three economic corridor programmes will accelerate our GDP growth and reduce logistic costs,” the minister said, after mentioning that these will projects had been identified under the PM Gati Shakti initiative.
The capital allocation in the interim budget announced by Sitharaman for the ministry of railways was ₹2.52 lakh crore, slightly higher than the ₹2.40 lakh crore projected to have been utilised (as per revised estimate) in 2023-24. The RE for the current fiscal was the same as had been allocated by Sitharaman during last year’s budget.
Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “Overall through these three corridors about 40,000 kilometers of new tracks will be made in the next six to eight years.”
Highlighting the advantage of these corridors, Vaishnaw said: “With this, there will be a significant increase in the capacity of railways… railways is the least-polluting mode of transportation… 90% CO2 emissions are saved using railways. Cost wise, it is also about 40-50% better, cheaper. This will bring a big transformation in the country’s economy, make it more efficient, make it more productive and reduce emission to make it more sustainable.”
The finance minister also announced that 40,000 rakes will be upgraded to Vande Bharat standards.
Currently, Vande Bharat has 82 services across its network.
Vaishnaw said the rail bogies will be upgraded over five years. “AC trains will be upgraded to AC and non-AC will remain non-AC but with upgraded technologies and better seats among others,” he said.
The estimated cost for upgrading these bogies is ₹15,200 crore in all, the minister said.
He also said that the government’s focus is to introduce more trains and tracks and to have a waiting-free system. “We aim to be free of waiting lists by 2030-2031.”
