Budget outlay for Railways for FY25 at Rs68,634 crore

Union Budget 2024-25 has allocated Rs68,634 crore for Indian Railways across various projects, including construction of new lines, gauge conversion and doubling of tracks across the country during the current financial year.

Current year’s budget allocation is nearly 6 times the Rs11,527 crore average annual allocation for the 2009-14 period.

Railways has taken up 651 projects, including new lines, gauge conversion and doubling of tracks, over a length of 49,983 km, under PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (NMP), for the development of infrastructure for multimodal connectivity to various economic zones. 

The objective is to have integrated transportation network, which would facilitate seamless movement of people, goods and services, including connectivity to industrial clusters, ports, mines, power plants, tourist and cultural places, agricultural zones etc, enhancing logistics efficiency.

As of 1 April 2024, 488 railway infrastructure projects, including 187 new lines, 40 gauge conversions and 261 doubling of tracks, involving a total length of 44,488 km, and costing approximately Rs7.44 lakh crore are in various stages of  planning/approval/construction. Of this,12,045 km length, involving an expenditure of about Rs2.92 lakh crore has been commissioned up to March 2024.

Remarkable expansion of 31,180 km achieved by Indian Railways from 2014 to 2024, with an average commissioning rate of 8.54 km per day for new lines, gauge conversions, and doubling sections.

Railway projects are taken up zone-wise based on utility, return on investment, last mile connectivity, missing links and alternate routes, decongestion of saturated lines as also socio-economic considerations and availability of funds.

Minister of railways, information and broadcasting and electronics and information technology, Ashwini Vaishnav gave this information in the Rajya Sabha on Saturday.