Lauding the Union Budget that was unveiled on Wednesday, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw extended gratitude to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the highest-ever capital outlay of Rs 2.40 lakh crore for railways.
Speaking at a presser, Vaishnaw said that the railways will focus on redeveloping 1,275 stations under the Amrit Bharat scheme across India. He added that several stations of big and small cities are in different stages of progress.
In order to boost PM Modi’s vision to connect different parts of the country, the government has planned to increase the production of Vande Bharat Express trains. The Minister said, “The production of Train 18 will be further ramped up. Now, the manufacturing of Vande Bharat will take place in Haryana’s Sonipat, Maharashtra’s Latur, and Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareilly.”
At present, the production of Vande Bharat Express trains takes place at Chennai’s Integral Coach factory (ICF) only.
The Union Minister said that Hydrogen-Powered trains will roll out by December 2023 and added that the train will be fully designed and manufactured in India, which will first run on the heritage corridor Kalka-Shimla route and its likes.
In line with the government’s green energy mission, the railways will install ultra mega solar power plants to cut the dependency on electricity. He, however, said that 85 percent of railway electrification has been completed.
To boost connectivity with the combination of economic and social corridors, the Centre has planned to work on the different infrastructural corridors for hilly areas, tribal areas, Janjati Gaurav Corridor for tribal areas, energy corridor, Sagar mala corridor for ports, cement corridors, etc.
The Minister stated that the work on the Mumbai- Ahmedabad Bullet train will be expedited.
In a bid to strengthen tourism, the Minister said that more circuits will be added to the series of trains like Bharat Gaurav.
Indian Railways has been allocated a capital outlay of Rs 2.41 lakh crore for the Financial Year 2023-24. The allocation is about nine times the outlay made since 2013-14.
Till 2014, the capital expenditure of the Railways was barely Rs 45,980 crore annually.
