HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, July 24: Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology, on Wednesday, held an interaction with media persons of north-east virtually from New Delhi in connection with the allocation for the Railway Ministry in the General Budget 2024-25. While addressing the media persons, the minister of Railways informed that a record allocation for capital investment of Rs 2.62 lakh crores has been provided for the railways. A large part of it, i.e. Rs 1.08 lakh crores, will be utilised on safety-related activities such as replacement of old tracks with new ones, improving signalling systems, installation of Kavach system, construction of road under bridges/road over bridges by replacing existing level crossing gates.
He further said that this budget focuses on introduction of new rolling stocks like Amrit Bharat Trains, Vande Metro, and Vande Bharat Sleeper. Railways’ direction on safety first, comfort of passengers, capacity augmentation and improving the infrastructure of railways are prioritised. An advanced version of ‘Kavach 4.0’ has got recent approval, which will be installed at a rapid pace. ‘Kavach 4.0’ is a combination of hardware, software, optical fibre, telecom tower, on-track system, stations and data centre administration. The minister of Railways informed that due to the rising demand for general coaches, railways had decided to manufacture 2,500 general coaches in this current fiscal year. Further, it has been decided to manufacture an additional 10,000 general coaches to cater to the rising demand.
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The minister of Railways said that the gross budget allocation for NF Railway for the FY 2024-25 is Rs 14,183.69 crores. The allocation for north-eastern states is Rs 10,376 crores, which is about 5 times higher than the average allocation of Rs 2,122 crores made during 2009-14.
During the interaction, GM informed that adequate funds have been allotted for all infrastructure & safety related works as compared to previous years. The general manager announced that electrification of 921 RKM was done during 2023-24. 1,573 RKM of tracks are targeted to be electrified during 2024-25. This will complete the electrification of all the NE states. Rs 694.69 crores have been allocated for electrification works over NF Railway.
This year’s budget allocation shows unprecedented growth in several segments for NF Railway. Around Rs 8,378.53 crores have been allocated for new line and doubling projects. Keeping safety and operations as top priorities, Rs 1,305.07 crores have been allocated for track renewal works and bridge works and Rs 170 crores for signalling & telecom works. Rs 537 crores have been allocated to improve passenger amenities in station premises. A total of 18 railway infrastructure projects of 1,368 km length with a total investment of Rs 74,972 crores are going on in the entire north-eastern region.
It is to be mentioned here that 60 stations of NF Railway will be redeveloped with world-class facilities under the Amrit Bharat Stations Scheme. Out of these, 50 in Assam, 4 in Tripura and 1 each in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland & Sikkim will be upgraded. A record number of 470 road over bridges/road under bridges have been constructed since 2014 over NF Railway by replacing existing level crossing gates to enhance safety for road and rail users.
The budget emphasises changing the overall infrastructure scenario of railways in addition to providing safety. The north-east connectivity will boost further with the record allocations as never before, which will also further augment the contribution of Indian Railways towards transforming north-eastern states.
