Proposals will lead to safety and higher travel speed for passengers, says Finance Minister
New Delhi/Chennai, NFAPost: The interim Budget on Thursday announced three railway corridor programmes — for energy, mineral and cement, port connectivity, and high traffic density — seeking to “accelerate” economic growth by bolstering the national transporter’s development.
The projects were identified under the PM Gati Shakti programme enabling multi-modal connectivity. The Budget proposal will improve logistics and reduce cost, said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech.
“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,” she said.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections later this year, Sitharaman ‘s remarks focus on the two major criticisms of the Indian Railways in 2023: Safety and punctuality. These criticisms were made after train accidents, including the one in Odisha’s Balasore where 300 people died on June 2, 2023 when three trains collided with each other. Congestion in the railway network led to overcrowding at stations and troubled travellers in the festive season in November.
Sitharaman said 40,000 regular bogies will be upgraded to the standards of Vande Bharat trains to enhance safety, convenience and comfort.
The Railways in 2022 made an ambitious plan of expanding rail infrastructure and network by Financial Year 2027-28 (FY28) so that freight loading in absolute tonnage of 3000 MT (million tone) could be achieved by FY30 (Mission 3000 MT). Under Mission 3000 MT, over 1200 works have been prioritised to be completed within five years with projected capex of Rs 8.45 trillion, which are at various stages of execution.
In FY 23, the Railways loaded 1512 MT as compared to 1418 MT during FY 2021-22 registering an increase of 6.63 per cent in terms of loading. This is the highest ever loading for the transporter in a Financial Year. In FY24, on a cumulative basis from April-November 2023, freight loading of 1015.67 MT was achieved against the previous year’s loading of 978.72 MT.
