Budget 2024: FM Sitharaman announces three new railway economic corridors

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also proposed that around 40,000 trains running as part of the Indian Railways will be upgraded to Vande Bharat trains

The Indian Railways has received a significant push in Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Interim Budget for 2024-25, as the government plans to set up three major economic railway corridors to reduce congestion and logistics costs in India.

She also proposed that around 40,000 trains running as part of the Indian Railways will be upgraded to Vande Bharat trains.

"Three corridors, including a corridor for energy, mineral, and cement, another to enhance port connectivity corridor, and a third to decongest the high traffic density corridors will be set up," the finance minister said in her Interim Budget speech.

"The projects have been identified under the PM Gati Shakti for enabling multimodal connectivity. They will improve logistics efficiency and reduce costs", Sitharaman added.

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"The resultant corridors will decongest the high traffic corridors and help in improving operations of passenger trains, resulting in safety and higher travel speed for passengers, together with dedicated freight corridors. These three economic corridor programmes will accelerate our GDP growth and reduce logistics cost", Sitharaman said.

The aviation minister also touched upon the aviation sector, saying that it has been “galvanized” in the past 10 years, and that the number of airports has increased to 149. In her speech, she indicated that expansion of existing and development of new airports would continue.

The roll-out of air connectivity to tier-2 and tier-3 schemes under Udaan scheme has been successful and Indian carriers have pro-actively placed orders for over 1,000 new aircraft, she added.