New Delhi: The Railway Ministry has been allocated Rs 1,40,367.13 crore in the Union Budget 2022-23. It is Rs 20,311 crore more than the revised figures of the previous fiscal.
"The Union Budget has a provision of Rs 1.37 lakh crores of the capital investment support for the Railways. It will help complete the stalled Railways projects," Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said during the post budget press conference.
Earlier on Tuesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced in her budget speech that 2,000 km of rail network will be brought under the indigenous world-class technology KAWACH, for safety and capacity augmentation. Speaking over the matter, Vaishnaw said, "Indigenously-developed anti-collision technology KAWACH is SIL4 certified which means there is the probability of a single error in 10,000 years."
The Government has also announced in the budget that 400 new generation Vande Bharat Express trains with better energy efficiency and passenger riding experience will be developed during the next three years.
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Vaishnaw welcomed the move and informed that the second version of Vande Bharat train is currently getting manufactured which will undergo the testing process in the month of April, followed by its serial production by August-September. "The target put by the Finance Minister is of the next generation, while we are currently under process of the second generation Vande Bharat Express," he said. He also informed that Railways has set up a target of 98 percent of Operating Ratio for this year.
"We are targeting 98 percent of the Operating Ratio in the coming year. We believe that we will better this. We are already achieving 4 million tonnes loading every day. We are targeting a consistent 4.5 million tonnes every day," the minister said. Apart from this, the railway sector will also witness 100 Gati Shakti Cargo terminals for multi-modal logistics facilities will be developed during the same period.
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Indian Railways has been given a task to develop new products and efficient logistics services for small farmers, small and medium enterprises, besides taking the lead in the integration of the postal and railway networks to provide seamless solutions. One Station, One Product concept will also be popularized. The allocation for the development of rolling stock has been kept at Rs 7,977 crore to bring in new modern coaches and technology to the national transporter. Meanwhile, the Government has allocated Rs 15,710.44 crore to the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), whose assets will be monetized by the Railways for operations and maintenance.
