India struck a balance between greater spending on jobs and rural development as well as transferring more funds to states, while narrowing the fiscal deficit, the 2024-25 budget unveiled on Tuesday showed. It though appeared largely silent on big-ticket announcements for Railways.
The word Railways was mentioned just once during Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's 83-minute long Budget speech.
The Economic Survey 2023-24 on Monday said the capital expenditure on the Railways has increased by 77 per cent over the past five years with significant investments in the construction of new lines, gauge conversion and doubling.
According to the survey tabled in Parliament by the Finance Minister, in the financial year 2019-2020, the capital expenditure was 1.48 lakh crore which was increased to Rs 2.62 lakh crore in 2023-24.
"Before 2014, the investment on the capex for Railways used to be of the order of Rs 35,000 crore. Today it is 2.62 lakh crore. It is a record capex for Railways. I am very grateful to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister for this kind of investment in Railways. If we look at 60 years before 2014, new trains were announced without making sure that tracks will have the capacity or not. Absolutely populist measures were taken which had no connection with the infrastructure condition of the railways. Last 10 years, the PM has focused in a big way on making sure that the foundation is properly prepared," Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Railway Minister, told NDTV.
The Minister underlined that there has been expansion in terms of railway tracks, electrification and shows vast improvement compared to the previous governments.
"40,000 km of railway tracks have been electrified. 31,000 km of new railway tracks have been constructed. If you look at electrification before 2014, in 60 years 20,000 km were electrified. In 10 years, 40,000 km have been electrified. If you look at pace of track construction, 2014 it was just 4 km a day, last fiscal it was 14.5 km a day, 5300 km of new tracks have been constructed. Huge focus on safety. Last year investment in safety related activities was Rs 98,000 crore, this year the allocation for safety related activities is Rs 1, 08,000 crore. So that tracks which are old can be replaced, new signalling system can be installed. Kavach 4.0 is now already approved, so now it can be installed in a very big way," he said.
Asked if the Railways' focus is on Vande Bharat, the flagship trains, and not on trains for the poor, the Minister clarified, "Approach is we have a large low-income base and that base we are addressing and then there is an aspirational class which is coming up. That aspirational class also needs to be addressed. So we are addressing both."
The Vande Bharat lists a number of features such as Kavach protection, faster acceleration and semi-high speed operation up to 160 kmph, fully sealed gangway for free passenger movement, automatic plug doors, reclining ergonomic seats and comfortable seating with revolving seats in executive class, better ride comfort among others.
"The way railways are structured every train has a standard composition. That standard composition has a particular number of air-conditioned coaches and a particular number of non-air-conditioned coaches. That standard composition remains the same. The ratio of a/c and non a/c coaches has generally been 1/3rd and 2/3rd. That ratio has been maintained. The demand for non a/c travel has increased now. More and more people are travelling, more and more people are demanding travel services for the non a/c segment. So we have taken up a special drive. We are manufacturing 2,500 non a/c coaches and in the coming three years we will be manufacturing another 10,000 extra non-ac coaches over and above the regular production programme. The prime aim of railways is to make sure that low income families and middle income families will be able to travel safely at an affordable cost. These trains are providing world class facilities at a cost of about Rs 450 for a 1000 km journey," said Mr Vaishnaw.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge accused the NDA government of presenting a very weak railway budget, adding Railways has become "na idhar ka na udhar ka (neither here not there)”.
"Railway accidents are happening every day, trains have been stopped, the number of coaches has been reduced, ordinary passengers are troubled, but nothing has been said about the railways in the budget, there is no accountability," Mr Kharge complained.
The Minister stressed that there is greater focus on safety and the government is making all efforts to make rail travel safe and secure.
"Every unfortunate incident that happens, we have a very strong mechanism for analysing it. There is a statutory mechanism of commissioner rail safety. We take it very seriously. Every such incident is a sad incident and we must make sure that that kind of thing is not repeated again. It is a humongous network and we are making all efforts and we will continue to do so," he said.
In the wake of the recent train accidents, it was expected that the Finance Minister will allocate more funds which would in turn be used to protect people.