Budget 2023: Railways share fires hopes of big Mumbai upgrade

The Indian Railways has received the biggestever allocation at Rs 240000 crore in the 202324 Budget With the huge outlay Mumbai is likely to get a big boost for several ongoing projects Railway officials have assured that there will be no shortage of funds for any of the Mumbai projects with such a huge allocationSources said that the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation MRVC working on several rail infra projects has this year demanded an allocation of Rs 2650 crore of which Rs 1325 crore will come from the Centrersquos budget and Rs 1325 crore from the stateWhile the money has been announced the detailed allocations of its projects for railways will be announced in the pink book to be tabled in the Parliament on FridayIn 2021 Mumbai railway was allocated Rs 650 crore and in 2022 the amount was about Rs 575 crore However as projects progress more funds are pumped in when requiredAlso Read Key highlights of Railway Budget 2023 Railway gets capital outlay of Rs 240 lakh crore highest everldquoThe budget is a gogetter budget There was a practice of allocating Rs 1000 for new projects to open a project head in the budget That practice has ended today The projects have been allocated enough money and now the onus on us railway officials is to deliver the projects and give output There will not be any excuse for unspent moneyrdquo said Western Railway General Manager AK MisraThe Mumbai Urban Transport Projects MUTP 3 and 3A have been on to upgrade infrastructure in Mumbai The projects include new rail corridors of which the KharBorivli sixth line project will be completed in two phases in 2023 While the KharGoregaon section will be ready by June 2023 the GoregaonBorivli section will be ready by December 2023Besides new rail corridors the MUTP3A includes projects like the implementation of new CommunicationsBased Train Control CBTC signalling system introduction of two more lines between Borivli and Virar and the upgradation and modernisation of 16 suburban stationsThere are also longterm plans to get 238 AC local trains customised for the citymdash47 under MUTP3 and 191 under MUTP3Amdashhaving inbuilt infotainment CCTVs and better acceleration The trains will be procured by the MRVC and plans are in processWhatrsquos in store nationallyldquoThis will be the biggest boost for our 800 crore passengers 25 crore daily We have also decided to redevelop 1275 Amrit Bharat stations The Vande Bharat train will be made at Latur Sonipat Rae Bareli besides ICFrdquo Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw saidThe budget proposal is a step towards further accelerating capital investment in the railway sector to address capacity constraints and bottlenecks that result in losses In the last few years the Railways have invested heavily in upgrading and expanding their networkVaishnaw said the government proposed to manufacture 35 hydrogen fuelbased trains and the first train will be ready by December 2023 Besides 4500 newly designed automobile carrier coaches with side entry 5000 LHB coaches and 58000 wagons have also been proposedldquoWe will be raising the frequency of introducing Vande Bharat Express trains to two to three per weekrdquo Vaishnaw said adding that the Bullet train project too has been fasttrackedRs 2650crFunds demanded by MRVC for infra workRs 575crAllocation to city railway in 2022No respite for us Transport sectorAn upset transport industry has said that the Budget 202324 has provided no respite to the road transport sector ldquoThere has been no tangible respite for the road transport sector of India in Budget 202324 despite the fact that this sector is the key link in the supply chain and is one of the highest taxpayers and employment generatorsrdquo said Bal Malkit Singh chairman core committee All India Motor Transport Congress ldquoWe strongly protest against the nonconsideration of the road transport sectorrsquos demands We will take a call on it in our governing council meetingrdquo he said