In the Union Budget 2023-24, the Centre government has made a record allocation for the Indian Railways with which the work of laying more than 12 km of tracks will be carried out on-day to-day basis. Crores of passengers will have direct benefit from the expansion of the railway network.
Speaking on the Centre’s largesse, Union Railway Minister Ashwani Vaishnav said a fund of Rs 75,000 crore has been announced in the budget for new schemes of the railways. The Central government has given a budget of 2.4 lakh crore to the Railways. Due to this, the shortfall in investment, which was being faced by the Railways for the last several years, will be overcome.
In the budget, emphasis is laid to the field of green growth and tourism. Work is being carried out on laying railway lines, increasing the number of semi-high speed trains. After the completion of the work, the number of trains in the country will increase and the trains will be able to go from one place to another at a record speed.
Work is underway on 183 new lines to connect with the rail network. Doubling of a single line in many places and gauge conversion is being done at many places. With this, rail travel will be made convenient for passengers. He told that on the first day, only 4 km of track laying work was done. Now the work of laying more than 12 km of track will be done every day.
Earlier, according to information given by the Railway Minister in the Parliament, work is going on on 452 projects of about 49,323 km length across the country. Their estimated cost is 7.33 lakh crore. Some of these are being planned, some have been approved and some are in progress. Along with this, 183 new railway lines are being constructed. Gauge conversion is being done on 42 lines and doubling on 227 lines.
As per information, Central Railway-14, Eastern Railway-12, East Coast Railway- 8, East Central Railway-25, North Central Railway- 1, Northeast Railway-10, Northeast Frontier Railway-20, Northern Railway-18, North Western Railway – 8, South Central Railway-15, South East Central Railway – 9, South East – 7, Southern Railway – 11, South Western Railway – 18, West Central Railway – 3 and Western Railway – 4 lines.