New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2021-22 on Monday allocating a record sum of Rs 1,10,055 crore for the development of Indian Railways. Out of this, Rs 1,07,100 crore has been provided for Capital Expenditure, focussing on the strategy of Indian Railways for the next 10 years.
"Indian Railways has prepared a National Rail Plan for India 2030. The plan is to create a future-ready railways system by 2030, bringing down the logistic cost for the industry. Bringing down the logistics cost is at the core of a strategy to enable Make in India," Finance minister said in her Budget Speech.
"It is being expected that the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor will be commissioned by June 2022," Sitharaman announced.
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The Union Finance Minister mentioned that the future corridor projects, including the East Coast corridor from Kharagpur to Vijayawada, East-West Corridor from Bhusaval-Kharagpur-Dankuni and North-South Corridor from Itarsi to Vijayawada will also be undertaken.
Focussing on its initiative of 'Green Railways' project, Nirmala Sitharaman announced that 100 per cent electrification of Broad Gauge routes will be completed by December 2023. It was expected that the Broad Gauge Route Kilometers (RKM) will reach 46,000 RKM, which will be 72 per cent by the end of 2021 as compared to 41,548 RKM on October 1, 2020.
Putting the spotlight on passenger convenience and safety measures, Center has announced High-Density Network and highly utilised network routes of Indian Railways will be provided with an indigenous developed automatic train protection system that eliminates train collision due to human error.
The introduction of aesthetically designed Vista Dome LHB coaches will also be done on tourist routes to give better travel experience to the passengers.
