Railway Budget 2024 Live Updates: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget 2024 speech announced that
Indian Railways will develop three major railway economic corridors. She also said that Indian Railways will upgrade bogies to Vande Bharat standards. According to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the upgradation of bogies to Vande Bharat standards will make train travel more comfortable for crores of passengers.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2024 in Parliament today. Since the Railway Budget is no longer separately presented, Indian Railways announcements formed a part of FM Sitharaman’s speech. Indian Railways is an important driver of economic growth. Indian Railways has been focusing on safety, infrastructure upgradation, launch of new trains and revamped railway stations as well.
Railway Budget 2024: Top Highlights
With Vande Bharat Express trains, Indian Railways has been revamping passenger comfort. FM Nirmala Sitharaman announced that Indian Railways will upgrade 40,000 bogies to Vande Bharat standards. "Forty thousand normal rail bogies will be converted to the Vande Bharat standards to enhance safety, convenience and comfort of passengers," Sitharaman said.
She also announced three major railway economic corridors. These will be
- Energy, mineral and cement corridor
- Port connectivity corridors
- High traffic density corridors
According to Sitharaman, these new corridors have been identified under the PM Gati Shakti initiative for multi-modal connectivity. The high traffic density corridors will help improve operations of passenger trains in order to ensure faster and safer rail travel. "The resultant decongestion of the high-traffic corridors will also 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 logistic costs,'" she said.
The added aim is faster travel with semi-high speed trains. However, Vande Bharat Express trains are air-conditioned chair car services and not suitable for long-distance overnight travel. Indian Railways is now looking to introduce Vande Bharat sleeper trains that will be better than Rajdhani Express trains.
Also Check | Budget 2024 Live Updates: FM Sitharaman at finance ministry; focus on infrastructure, income tax, job announcements from Union BudgetRecently, Indian Railways launched the Amrit Bharat Express trains - a new premium push-pull technology train for the common man. The non-AC Amrit Bharat Express has several passenger comforts for general unreserved passengers and Indian Railways is looking to soon add AC coaches to the train as well in the coming financial year.
New Indian Railways trains 2024
Smriti Jain is a business and economy journalist with over 15 yea...
Read MoreSmriti Jain is a business and economy journalist with over 15 years of reporting and editing experience. She writes extensively on the Indian economy, infrastructure stock markets, personal finance and Indian Railways. She has also hosted weekly video shows on TOI - TOI Business Bytes and TOI Wallet Talks. A graduate in Economics (H) from Delhi University, she has worked in Economic Times Digital and Financial Express Digital in her previous stints.
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