HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, Feb 1: Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw an amount of Rs Rs. 10,369 crores has been allocated for development of railway infrastructure projects in the Northeast region in the interim budget 2024-25.
The Union minister announced this on Thursday while interacting with media persons. Chetan Kumar Shrivastava, general manager of the Northeast Frontier Railway and other senior railway officials were also present during the interaction.
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This allocation is 388% higher as compared to the average budget allocation of Rs. 2,122 crores during 2009-14. This year budget allocation shows unprecedented growth in several segments like new line and doubling projects, track renewal works, traffic facilities, road safety works, bridge works, signalling, workshop modernisation and customer amenities etc. Vaishnaw also informed that Rs. 81,941 crores is already being invested in the entire Northeastern region for development of railway infrastructure.
The Union minister informed that a capital outlay of more than Rs. 2.5 lakh crores have been provided in the budget for the Indian Railways. Three major railway corridor projects will be implemented as announced by the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech. These are energy, mineral and cement corridor, port-connectivity corridor and high-traffic density corridor. They will improve logistics efficiency and reduce transportation cost that will improve safety for passenger trains as well. Moreover, 40,000 normal railway coaches will be converted to Vande Bharat standards.
Vaishnaw said that 60 stations in Northeast are being redeveloped with world class amenities/facilities. The One Station One Product stall operational all over NFR are providing a direct selling market to locally produced items, which are getting a good response from passengers with a profitable growth.
During the interaction, the minister said that physical progress of all the ongoing projects in the Northeastern region are advancing at a good pace. Despite being in the Himalayan region and running through tough terrains, project works are being implemented round-the-clock for early completion.
