Railways allocation hiked to record ₹1.48 lakh crore

The Union Budget has allocated a record ~1.48 lakh crore for Indian Railways to raise its carrying capacity and improve the train travel experience.

Of this, ~1.46 lakh crore is capital expenditure, while ~2028 crore is to reimburse operating losses on strategic lines and reimburse IRCTC for the operational cost of e-ticketing. In the last budget, finance minister Arun Jaitley had waived service charges on railway e-tickets to encourage cashless transactions. The charges waived were ~40 for AC class and ~20 for sleeper class.

Jaitley said a large part of the capital expenditure is for capacity creation, and mentioned different initiatives being taken. These include track doubling, and third and fourth line works of 18,000 km; and 5,000 km of gauge conversion, redeveloping 600 railway stations and equipping them with Wi-Fi and CCTV cameras, introduction of modern train-sets and escalators for stations with footfalls over 25,000.

The budget also had good news for suburban railways.

Jaitley said Mumbai’s suburban rail system is being expanded at cost of ~10,000 crore, and an additional suburban network worth ~40,000 crore was also being planned, including elevated corridors. Similarly, 160 km of suburban rail network worth ~17,000 crore has been planned for Bengaluru.

Railways will step the use of ‘Fog Safe’ and Train Protection and Warning System, and eliminate 4267 unmanned level crossing in the next two years.

NEWDELHI: