GUWAHATI, Feb 4: The Gross Budget Allocation for Railway infrastructure projects in the Northeast for the 2025-26 financial year has been put at Rs 10,440 crore, Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, while speaking to media persons on Monday.
Vaishnaw said the proposed allocation is more than 5 times compared to the average budget allocation of Rs 2,122 crore made during 2009-14 in the UPA era.
He said that for the second time in a row, total outlay of more than Rs 2.65 lakh crore have been made in the general budget, tabled by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, for Indian Railways.
The Railway Minister mentioned that Indian Railways is all set to expand faster, safer & comfortable rail travel all across the country. 200 new Vande Bharat trains, 100 Amrit Bharat trains and 50 Namo Bharat rapid rails will be rolled out in the coming years, he added.
The new trains & modern coaches will go a long way in serving the lower and middle class people. To enhance safety 1000 new flyover and underpasses will also be constructed, he added.
During the interaction, the Minister said that physical progress of all the ongoing projects in the Northeastern region are advancing at a good pace. Despite being located in geographically difficult terrain, project works are being carried out on 24×7 basis for early completion.
In Assam & Northeast, 1,824 kilometres of new tracks were constructed since 2014, which is more than the entire rail network of Sri Lanka. 478 new flyovers and underpasses were constructed in the northeastern states since 2014. A total of 1189 Route Kilometres have been identified for implementation of Kavach across NF Railway, the Minister added.
Chetan Kumar Shrivastava, General Manager of NF Railway, Arun Kumar Choudhary, General Manager of NF Railway (Construction) and senior railway officials also attended the interaction virtually from Guwahati, a release issued by NF Railway CPRO Kapinjal Kishore Sharma stated.
