Uttarakhand got 4641 crores from the Rail Budget. This size of the budget is much more than the neighboring states of Himachal, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. The budget received by the state will help in the construction of the 125 km long Rishikesh-Karnprayag rail line of strategic and Chardham Yatra importance at a faster pace. Apart from this, there will be no shortage of funds in developing 11 railway stations as Amrit Station. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, who joined the Press Information Bureau virtually on Monday, addressed the journalists. He said that between the years 2009 and 2014, the state had received a total of Rs 187 crore in the Rail Budget. In this context, the size of the current budget is 25 times. The central government is serious about the Rishikesh-Karnprayag rail line. This will not only fulfill the strategic importance, but will also give impetus to the Chardham Yatra. The target of completing this mega project of Rs 24,659 crore has been set for the year 2026. Till date, more than 49 percent of the work has been completed.
Work will be done on armor system
The 11 railway stations in the state are being developed under the Amrit Station Project. There is a provision of Rs 147 crore for these. Uttarakhand has also been linked to the armor system from the point of view of security in the railways. The armor system has been recommended for 49 route kilometers in the state.
Government’s efforts to improve the railways continued: Ashwini Vaishnav
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said on Saturday that the government’s efforts to improve the railways have been continued in the budget. For this, Rs 2.52 lakh crore has been allocated and projects like construction of 17,500 general coaches, 200 Vande Bharat and 100 Amrit Bharat trains have been approved. Vaishnav told reporters at Rail Bhavan that new projects worth Rs 4.6 lakh crore have been included in the budget. These will be completed in four to five years. These include laying of new lines, doubling, quadrupling, new construction, station redevelopment, flyovers, underpasses, among others. He said that 100 Amrit Bharat, 50 Namo Bharat and 200 Vande Bharat (sleeper and chair car) trains will be made in the next two to three years. We will connect many short distance cities with new Amrit Bharat trains.
Regarding general coaches, Vaishnav said that approval has been given to make 17,500 such coaches in the coming years. Vaishnav said that the manufacture of general coaches is already underway and 1,400 such coaches will be manufactured by March 31. In the financial year 2025-26, our target is to manufacture 2,000 general coaches. Apart from this, approval has been given to build 1,000 new flyovers.
The Railway Minister said that another major milestone that the Railways is going to achieve by March 31 is our freight carrying capacity. We will achieve the target of 1.6 billion tonnes of freight by March 31 and become the second largest freight carrying railway network in the world after China. Apart from this, we are going to achieve 100 percent electrification by the end of this financial year.
Underlining the government’s priority on investing in the safety of rail operations, Vaishnav said that the allocation for this has been increased from Rs 1.08 lakh crore to Rs 1.14 lakh crore. It will be further increased to Rs 1.16 lakh crore in the next financial year.
