Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday exhorted the Railways to meet its capex target for 2024-25 in a time-bound manner by taking forward the momentum achieved in the first 100 days of this government.
Railways investments have been funded through the Budget in recent years. In April-August 2024, Railways Board capex fell by 31% to Rs 86,730 crore. It’s target is set at Rs 2.6 lakh crore as against the achievement of Rs 2.49 lakh crore in FY24.
In her second review meeting with ministries with significant capex outlays, Railway officials apprised the minister about the capital expenditure plans and progress for the current fiscal year. “Underlining the focus of the government on providing ‘ease of living’ for citizens, Sitharaman urged the officials of the ministry of railways to focus on capacity augmentation, safety and commuter convenience, including doubling and electrification of existing railway tracks and also laying of new railway lines across the country as per the capex outlay provisioned in the Union Budget,” Sitharaman said in a statement.
In a big push towards logistics efficiency and reduction of logistics costs related to rail movement, the Budget for 2024-25 provided for three Economic Railway Corridors Programmes identified under the PM Gati Shakti for enabling multi-modal connectivity, including energy, mineral, and cement corridors; port connectivity corridors; and high traffic density corridors.
The railways officials informed Sitharaman that 434 railway projects have been identified under three economic corridors totalling 40,900 km with a total investment plan of Rs 11.16 lakh crore: Energy, Mineral and Cement Corridor (192 projects); High-Density Network Corridors (200 projects); and Rail Sagar Projects (42 projects).
The railway officials also apprised that under these Corridors, 55 projects have already been sanctioned till now with a total length of 5,723 km and an investment plan of Rs 1.03 lakh crore. During the current year, 101 projects are to be appraised under the Corridor programme.
The slowdown in public capex — Centre, states and CPSEs — so far in the current financial year has been largely due to the impact of the general election in April-May when everything came to almost a standstill