Railways to invest ₹7 tn to lay tracks over the next decade

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : The Indian Railways will invest at least ₹7 trillion over the next decade to lay a record 50,000 kilometres (km) of new train tracks to modernize its network and boost train speeds, a top railway ministry official said. Encouraged by significant progress in laying new lines over the past couple of years, Railways now wants to go into mission mode to improve connectivity with modern tracks that can handle higher speed trains such as Vande Bharat, the official said on the condition of anonymity. Laying new tracks will be part of a new Vision 2047 document for the national transporter, under which it expects to add 100,000 km of new alignments, including some replacements, doubling and gauge conversion works over the next 25 years costing ₹15-20 trillion.

“Railways has successfully added a record 5,200 km new tracks in 2022-23 and expects the same this year. The target is to maintain this pace for the next 10 years while also focusing on the replacement of old worn-out tracks to present a strong railway infrastructure capable of handling modern high-speed transportation systems," the official said. A query sent to a railway ministry spokesperson remained unanswered till press time.

Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had told Mint in an earlier interview that laying new tracks would be a key focus area of the national transporter to bring modern railway infrastructure to every part of India. Next year’s budget may allocate ₹50,000 crore for laying 5,000-5,500 km of new tracks, the official added. This will be an increase of more than 50% from the FY24 budget estimate of ₹31,850 crore for new lines.