New Delhi, Feb 1
Calling the Union Budget 2025-26 "amazing", Union Railways and Electronics and IT Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday said that with the big allocation to it, Indian Railways is all set to expand faster, safer and comfortable rail travel across the country.
The country can expect "200 new Vande Bharat trains, 100 Amrit Bharat trains, 50 Namo Bharat rapid rail and 17,500 general non-AC coaches in next two to three-years time", the minister said.
Vaishnaw thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for allocating Rs 2,52,000 crore for the financial year (FY) 2025-26 as gross budgetary support to the Ministry of Railways - the second time in a row.
"The new trains and modern coaches will go a long way in serving the low and middle-class people," he added.
This year’s Budget mentions infrastructure development projects of Railways to the order of Rs 4,60,000 crore. Focusing on safety, the budget allocates Rs 1,16,000 crore for expenditure to augment the safety of Indian Railways through various projects.
Talking to the media after the presentation of the Union Budget in Lok Sabha, the minister said the budget "not only seeks to create employment by means of investment but gives a big relief to the middle class with reduced income tax burden".
Reimbursement of losses on operation of strategic lines has been kept at Rs 2,739.18 crore in the Budget Estimates 2025-26 as against Rs 2,602.81 crore in last fiscal’s Revised Estimates 2024-25.
An amount of Rs 706 crore is provided in this fiscal year towards debt servicing of market borrowings for national projects.
With this, the net revenue expenditure of Indian Railways is placed at Rs 3,02,100 crore in this year’s Budget Estimates as against 2,79,000 crore in the Revised Estimates of last fiscal.
This fiscal’s gross budgetary support is almost 9 times of what it was, at only Rs 28,174 crore, in 2013-14.
The Indian Railways is all set to become the second highest freight carrying Railway, touching 1.6 billion tonnes of cargo by the end of this fiscal.
On the high-speed trains, India aims to have 7,000 km of high-speed rail network supporting a speed of 250 km per hour by 2047.
Talking about sustainability, the Railway Minister mentioned that India Railways will achieve 100 per cent electrification by the end of FY 2025-26. Besides as the Budget announced small modular reactors as a source of non-fossil energy, Indian Railways will take the lead in electrification efforts.
- IANS