Indian railways will get record-breaking financing

Indian railways will get record-breaking financing

India’s government budget for fiscal 2021/2022 provides railway expenditures of Rs 1.1 trillion (approximately US $ 15 billion), including Rs 1.07 trillion for capital expenditures. It is reported by the railway magazine Railway Supply with reference to Zdmira.

Taking into account extra-budgetary sources, the volume of investments in the development of the country’s railways will amount to 2.15 trillion rupees (29.3 billion US dollars). This is the largest investment in the history of rail transport in India, exceeding the previous year’s figures by Rs 540 billion.

This increase in investment is in line with the government’s strategy to increase budget spending to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic on the country’s economy. At the same time, one of the most important tasks is to reduce the share of the transport component in the final cost of domestic products.

To this end, it is planned to launch the Western and Eastern dedicated cargo corridors by June 2022. Moreover, the section of the Eastern Son Nagar-Gomo corridor with a length of 263.7 km, built on the basis of a public-private partnership, will be put into operation in 2021 – 2022, few later, traffic will open on the Gomo – Dankuni section of 274.3 km.

It is planned to further develop the network of dedicated cargo corridors. In particular, projects are being developed for the East Coast corridor between the cities of Kharagpur and Vijayawada, as well as the East-West corridors from Bhusaval to Kharagpur and Dankuni, and the North-South corridors from Itarsi to Vijayawada.

Continuous electrification of the 1676 mm gauge lines is ahead. The length of the electrified landfill by the end of 2021 should be 46 thousand km, or 72% of the total length of the lines. The process is planned to be fully completed by the end of 2023. As of October 1, 2020, 41.5 thousand km were electrified in India.

The construction of second tracks is envisaged in a number of directions, funds are allocated for the project of the high-speed line Mumbai – Ahmedabad. In the 2021/2022 financial year, it is expected to prepare project proposals for another seven high-speed lines with a total length of about 4.9 thousand km.

Much attention in the state budget is paid to the development of urban public transport, including the subway. Currently, the country has 702 km of metro lines, and another 1,016 km of metro and RRTS lines are under construction in 27 cities.

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