Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced the biggest-ever push for Indian Railways with a capital outlay of ₹2.40 lakh crore. Compared to the last fiscal year, it is a rise of 65.6 per cent and nine times higher than the railway allocation in 2013-14.
“The Indian Railways capital outlay has been set at 2.40 lakh crore, highest ever; 9x of what was in 2013,” Sitharaman said in her Budget speech on February 1.
The disbursements will be utilised for railway tracks, electrification and station facilities, among others. The ministry of railways is aiming for full electrification by 2023, more Vande Bharat trains and construction of 2,000 km of tracks. The Economic Survey, too, had hailed Vande Bharat as a great initiative of the Indian Railway.
Railways had asked for ₹2.5 lakh crore as capital expenditure for the next fiscal year.
Sitharaman started her speech on Wednesday in Parliament by outlining the seven priorities of Budget 2023 and called them the ‘Saptrishi’. Nirmala Sitharaman said Budget 2023 is aimed at the economic empowerment of women and job generation for the youth.
Railway Budget is no longer presented separately as it was combined with the Union Budget in 2016.
Earlier, President Droupadi Murmu in her maiden budget speech to the joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, had said, “Indian Railways is fast moving towards becoming world’s largest electric railway network.”
