Right from the British Era, Railways has been considered as the backbone of the Indian Economy. In current times, The Indian Government is taking every step to account for the growth in passenger traffic and to increase the freight movement. The entire world has been taken aback by the COVID 19 pandemic, but the Indian Government has continued its focus on developing and modifying Infrastructure to foster sustainable growth. In the Union Budget 2021, Hon’ble Finance Minister announced A “National Monetization Pipeline” of potential brownfield infrastructure assets. To support this initiative, an Asset Monetization dashboard will be developed for tracking the progress and to provide visibility to investors.

The Finance Minister made the massive announcement in today’s Union budget by accounting INR 1,10,055 crores, for Railways out of which INR 1,07,100 crores is for capital expenditure. It was also announced that the Indian Railways have prepared a National Rail Plan for India – 2030. The Plan will emphasize on creating a ‘future ready’ Railway system by 2030. The Finance Minister also announced for the Railways sector to monetise Dedicated Freight Corridor assets for operations and maintenance, after commissioning.

Logistics forms a big component of a product’s cost. The Government understands the importance of building a strong and all-round logistics network across the nation to provide state of the art services at efficient prices not only to foreign players entering the economy but also to the domestic industries, thereby giving massive boost to the Make in India Initiative. The Government expects that Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and Eastern DFC to be commissioned by June 2022.

The Finance Minister also announced the following big future projects in the Railways Sector:

• The Sonnagar – Gomoh Section (263.7 km) of Eastern DFC via PPP mode in 2021-22 which will be followed by Gomoh-Dankuni section of 274.3km
• Future dedicated freight corridor projects namely East Coast corridor from Kharagpur to Vijayawada, East-West Corridor from Bhusaval to Kharagpur to Dankuni and North-South corridor from Itarsi to Vijayawada.
• The Government aims to achieve 100% electrification of Broad-Gauge routes by December 2023.
• For passenger trains, the government plans to work towards aesthetically designing the Vista Dome LHB Coach.

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