Budget 2024: FM Nirmala Sitharaman announces Metro Rail and Namo Bharat to additional cities

Railway Budget 2024: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2024-25 on Thursday (February 1, 2024). Sitharaman announced the launch of three major economic corridor programmes, which will be implemented to enhance the transportation of energy, cement, and minerals.
 
Sitharaman announced the expansion of key rail infrastructure projects such as Metro Rail and Namo Bharat to additional cities. She also mentioned the conversion of approximately 40,000 rail bogies into Vande Bharat standard coaches. Sitharaman highlighted the government’s efforts in revitalising the aviation sector over the past decade. She noted that the number of airports had doubled to 149 during this period.

While railway corridors will improve the efficiency of logistic services and reduce cost, conversion of coaches will increase the safety, convenience and comfort of passengers, she said. "Three major economic railway corridor programmes will be implemented. These are energy, mineral and cement corridors, port connectivity corridors, and high-traffic density corridors," Sitharaman said. "The projects have been identified under PM Gati Shakti for enabling multi-modal connectivity. They will improve logistics efficiency and reduce cost," she said.

The creation of new railway corridors will result in decongestion of high-traffic corridors and "will also help in improving operations of passenger trains, resulting in safety and higher travel speed for passengers", Sitharaman said. "Together with dedicated freight corridors, these three economic corridor programmes will accelerate our GDP growth and reduce logistic costs," the finance minister said. She said that "40,000 normal rail bogies will be converted to Vande Bharat standards to enhance safety, convenience and comfort of passengers".