Indian Railways
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said on Monday that Indian Railways had spent 98 percent of its budget set for the financial year 2025-26 by the end of February. This shows fast implementation of projects. The minister also said that in the coming time, train services will overtake flights on many routes in the country. Vaishnav said that in the last financial year, almost the entire capital expenditure was spent by the first week of March.
By the last week of February, more than 98 percent had been spent. After this, we had to stop the pace of expenditure to some extent so that the financial year could end in a balanced manner.
Electrification of 49,000 kilometers of railway track
He said that so far 49,000 kilometers of railway tracks have been electrified in the country, which is more than the entire rail network of Germany. At the same time, 36,000 kilometers of new tracks have been added, which is almost six times the rail network of Switzerland. The minister said that there will be a significant reduction in travel time on these new routes due to which people will prefer trains instead of air travel. He told that the government is developing a new corridor between Mumbai and Pune where the travel time will reduce to only 28 minutes. The time taken from Pune to Hyderabad will be one hour 55 minutes and the time taken from Hyderabad to Bengaluru will be approximately two hours.
99 percent travel will be through railways
Vaishnav said that no one will pay attention to flight services on such routes. These areas will almost disappear for aviation companies. Those who want to invest in aviation companies should understand from now on that 99 percent of the traffic on these routes will be from railways. He said that the travel time between Bengaluru and Chennai will reduce to 78 minutes, making these two cities almost like a combined metropolis. Apart from this, the journey from Delhi to Varanasi will be completed in three hours 50 minutes while the journey from Delhi to Lucknow will be possible in about two hours.
