If the last couple of years were all about highways and other road infrastructure, the interim budget 2024 brings the focus back to a sector that boasted of its own standalone budget till seven years ago — railways.
While the capex outlay for railways, at Rs 2.5 lakh crore is just a wee bit higher than the Rs 2.4 lakh crore last year, what has perked up the sector are the big ticket announcements — three new rail corridors, a massive scale up of Vande Bharat (quality) trains, as well as expansion of transit systems, and not just the metro.
The biggest, of course, are the three new economic railway corridors to be implemented. This includes an energy, mineral and cement corridor, a port connectivity corridor, as well as one that has the potential to redraw the passenger transportation scene in the country — a high-traffic density corridor.
The aim, at the core of it, is to decongest high-traffic corridors so that it helps in improving travel speed for passenger trains. The projects will be implemented under PM Gati Shakti to enable multi-modal connectivity. “Together with dedicated freight corridors, these three economic corridor programmes will accelerate our GDP growth and reduce logistic costs,” said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
The budget proposals also include upgrading 40,000 ‘normal rail bogies’ to Vande Bharat standards. Expansion of not just the metro, but the RRTS train service connecting cities to suburbs and satellite towns, billed NaMo Bharat, is also in the proposal. One section of India’s first NaMo Bharat line is already in operation and once complete, will provide lightning-fast connectivity Between Delhi’s Inter-State Bus Terminal at Sarai Kale Khan with the satellite town of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.
