Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on February 1 said that 60 stations in the Northeast are being redeveloped with world class facilities while adding that the gross budget allocation for railway infrastructure projects in the Northeast region for the FY 2024-25 is Rs 10,369 crore.
In an interaction with the media post the announcement of the interim budget, minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the gross budget allocation for railway infrastructure projects in the Northeast region is 388% higher as compared to average budget allocation of Rs 2,122 crore 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,” a statement from the Northeast Frontier Railway said.
The railway minister also informed that an investment of Rs 81,941 crore is being done in the entire Northeastern region for development of infrastructure.
The minister also informed that a capital outlay of more than Rs 2.5 lakh crore have been provided in the budget for the Indian Railways. He mentioned that three major railway corridor programmes will be implemented as announced by the finance minister 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. As many as 40,000 normal railway coaches will be converted to Vande Bharat standards,” the finance minister had mentioned.
During the interaction, the minister said that physical progress of all the ongoing projects in the Northeast region are advancing at a good pace. Despite being in Himalayan region and running through tough terrains, project works are being done going on 24×7 basis for early completion.
