Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw speaks on the Union Budget in New Delhi on July 23, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The Ministry of Railways has received a record allocation of over ₹2.55 lakh crore in financial year 2024-25, which is a jump of 5.85% from the previous year’s ₹2.41 lakh crore, according to Union Budget documents.

The total outlay provided for capital expenditure includes ₹2.52 lakh crore from general revenues, ₹200 crore from Nirbhaya Fund, ₹3,000 crore from internal resources and ₹10,000 crore from extra budgetary resources, bringing it up to ₹2.65 lakh crore. This amount will be spent on assets, acquisitions, construction and replacement, the Budget document stated.

In 2014, only ₹35,000 crore was spent towards capital expenditure on railways. “Compared to that, current Budget estimates are a record allocation for capital expenditure for railways. And a majority of this fund will be spent on ensuring safety works,” Mr. Vaishnaw said.

The actual operating ratio of the railways for FY2022-23 stood at 98.10%. In Budget Estimates of FY2024-25, this has gone up a bit to 98.22%. Operating ratio is number of rupees spent to earn every hundred rupees.

He said the priority of railways will be safety first, comfort, increase in capacity and also in infrastructure.

Kavach installation

With approvals on Kavach 4.0 which have been received, the pace of installation of the Automatic Train Protection system will be rapid. “Kavach consists of multiple components like hardware, software, optical fibre. And India has a diverse network of railway systems, so the challenge is to combine all networks for deployment of Kavach,” said Mr. Vaishnaw.

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He also said that there is a major focus on generating employment in railways and that 38,000 to 40,000 new jobs are being created. “In the first two terms of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, up to five lakh jobs were created,” he said.

Mr. Vaishnaw further said that there will be focus on new projects, connectivity with Kashmir, as well as connecting all capitals of Northeastern States. He added that the thrust will be on procuring new rolling stock, developing Vande Bharat, Amrit Bharat trains and Vande Metro.