RLYS GET ` 1.1 L CR PUSH
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget proposal has brought the infrastructure development at the centre stage with higher allocation. This is in addition to the National Infrastructure Pipeline of Rs111 lakh crore. She has proposed Rs20,000 crore to set up and capitalise a Development Financial Institution (DFI) – to act as a provider, enabler and catalyst for infrastructure financing. FM said Rs5 lakh crore lending portfolio will be created under the proposed DFI in 3 years and Debt Financing by Foreign Portfolio Investors to be enabled by amending InvITs’ and REITs’ legislations.
Sitharaman has announced an outlay of Rs1,18,101 lakh crore for Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of which Rs. 1,08,230 crore is for capital and Rs 1,10,055 crore for Railways of which Rs1,07,100 crore is for capital expenditure. She also announced the setting up of dedicated freight corridors across the country.
FM spelt out the government's plans to equip trains plying on the high-density networks and routes with an
—NIRMALA SITHARAMAN, Union Finance Minister indigenously developed automatic train protection system that will prevent train collision due to human error. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said his Ministry’s allocation has been increased from Rs 91,000 crore to Rs1,18,101 crore and predicted it to be a huge boost for infrastructure. He also announced the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways' plans to build 22 green highways. Further, Gadkari informed that construction of highways up to 8500 km had already been awarded and revealed that the various projects including the important Mumbai-Kanyakumari corridor would be kick-started by the government in the coming days. As far as urban infrastructure is concerned, FM the share of public transport in urban areas will be raised by expansion of metro
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 is at the core of a strategy to enable Make in India.
rail network and augmentation of city bus service. She announced Rs 18,000 crore for a new scheme, to augment public bus transport includ
ing innovative PPP models to run more than 20,000 buses.
MetroLite’ and ‘MetroNeo’ technologies will be introduced in various states to
provide metro rail systems at much lesser cost with similar experience in Tier-2 cities and peripheral areas of Tier-1 cities.